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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65098 ***

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DAUGHTERS OF MEN

BY

HANNAH LYNCH

AUTHOR OF
“TROUBLED WATERS,” ETC.

NEW YORK

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY

150 WORTH ST., COR. MISSION PLACE




COPYRIGHT, 1892,

BY

UNITED STATES BOOK COMPANY

[_All rights reserved._]




TO DEMETRIOS BIKELAS.


MY DEAR FRIEND,

Of your kindly interpretation of the laughter here and there in this
volume, purporting to be a picture of modern Greek life, I have no
doubt. You at least know that I lack neither friendship nor sympathy
with your race. We like not the less those whom we laugh at, provided
our laughter is not meant to wound. For are not our own absurdities and
weaknesses mirrored in those of others?

My more serious preoccupation is the accuracy of my judgment and
observation. For any errors on this ground I claim your indulgence. The
foreign observer is proverbially impertinent and inaccurate, as we in
Ireland have sad reason to know. We do not lack our Abouts, though it
may be doubted if we accept them in a spirit so generous as you do.

In placing your name before my story, I may be said to hoist the
colours of Greece, and under them dare sail my little bark of Greek
passengers without any fear of coming to grief upon Hellenic shores,
should I have the honour to penetrate so far.

H. L.




DAUGHTERS OF MEN.




CHAPTER I.

AT THE AUSTRIAN EMBASSY.


The Austrian embassy at Athens was more largely and more brilliantly
attended than usual. At nine o’clock the Patissia Road showed a
line of carriages going backward towards the Platea Omonia from the
gaily-lighted embassy. All the foreign ministers were there, as
well as the Prime Minister of Greece, and whatever distinguished
travellers Athens had the honour of entertaining at that time,--it
being winter, there was a goodly number. A Russian Prince or two,
presented by the Russian minister; two eminent English politicians on
their way to Constantinople for a confidential exchange of views with
the Sublime Sultan, to be remembered by jewelled snuff-boxes or some
such trifles; a sprightly French mathematician straight from Paris
the Blest; a half-dozen of celebrated archæologists, furnished by
Europe and the United States, all viewing each other with more or less
malevolence and suspicion--the Frenchman noticeably not on speaking
terms with his distinguished brother from Germany; Dr. Jarovisky of
world renown, fresh from Pergamos and recent discoveries at Argos,
speaking various languages as badly as possible; a genial and witty
Irish professor rushing through Greece with the intention of writing
an exhaustive analysis of the country and the people, in that spirit
of amiable impertinence so characteristic of hasty travellers. There
was the flower of the so-called Greek aristocracy: Phanariote Princes,
Græco-Italian Counts from Zante and Corfu, and retired merchants and
speculators from Constantinople and Smyrna and London. There was
a Greek poet, hardly distinguishable in accent and manner from a
Parisian, except in a detail of appearance which gave him the head
of a convict, so hideously do the Hellenes shave their heads to look
as if they wore mouse-coloured skull caps; a prose translator of
Shakespeare, who had lately visited the Immortal’s shrine at Warwick,
and, in the interests of local colouring modelled himself since his
return as closely as possible upon the accepted type of the English man
of letters, and surveyed the frivolities under his eye with a British
impassivity and glacial neutrality of gaze. All the musical dilettanti
of the city of the Wise Maid were there, and all its presentable
women. Some of the girls were pretty, and all were thickly powdered
and richly dressed; all had large, brilliant dark eyes. And the gowns
and frocks from Paris, the jewels, lace, aigrettes, flowers, and bare
arms and shoulders made an effective and troublous contrast with the
preponderance of masculine evening attire and semi-official splendour.

This large and distinguished gathering had been convened in honour of
the return to her native city of Mademoiselle Photini Natzelhuber, a
celebrated pianiste, the rival and friend of Rubinstein, the pupil
of Liszt and not greatly inferior to her master, who, at Vienna, had
been publicly named by him Queen of Pianists to match his recognised
kingliness. All Athens was on tiptoe of expectation, eager to hear her,
and still more eager to see her. It is not known, but extravagantly
conjectured, with what sum the Baroness von Hohenfels was able to bid
over the heads of her rival salonists and procure the honour of the
Natzelhuber’s first appearance in Athens. Sane and discerning persons
were probably right in putting it down to francs represented by four
figures, for Austrian baronesses have a pretty accurate knowledge of
the value of money. But for the moment six figures were supposed to
represent the sum, and the matter was discussed with that singular
absence of reserve or delicacy with which fashionable and well-bred
society is apt to discuss the affairs of its host in the host’s own
house.

Through the confused mingling of languages French could be detected as
the most universal. A fair, pale young man, with the grave questioning
air of a stranger who is disagreeably conscious of being shy and ill at
ease, and, above all, utterly and helplessly alone, was walking about
the rooms, amazed and bewildered by this Babel of tongues and types,
and seemed to entreat by his look of gentle fear that no one should
notice him or talk to him. He stared around with unquiet, troubled
blue eyes, so very blue, so hopelessly, stupidly frank and clear, like
a child’s, that they made more noticeable the extreme youthfulness
of his face and most slender figure. A mere boy, twenty-one years of
innocence and ignorance leaving him on the brink of manhood with only
the potentialities of his sex faintly shadowed in the lightest gold
stain above the soft upper lip. He had just stepped into the glare and
turmoil of life from the protected shadow of an isolated old castle
in Rapolden Kirchen, with no more reliable and scientific guide to
the mysteries of existence than a tender and nervous mother, who,
after bringing him up like a girl, had left him for another sphere,
and no other knowledge of the passions and their complex sensations
than that to be gathered in a close and fervent study of music. It is
easy to picture him. A reserved lad of high-bred Austrian type, with
a glacially pure face, and heart fluttering with girlish timidity,
half-frightened and half-attracted by the world he interprets in the
vague light of his own pathetic ignorance, just conscious of opening
curiosities upon the eternal feminine, and ready to sink with shame the
instant a strange woman looked at him.

“Who is that charming boy?” asked a handsome old lady, whose motherly
heart was touched by the childish uneasiness and loneliness of his
attitude.

“That fair-haired young fellow near the window?” her companion
answered. “Nice looking, isn’t he? A very pretty young lady, eh?”

“Don’t be so malicious. Men are always jealous of a handsome boy. You
know how powerfully he appeals to our sympathetic sex. But who is he?”

“Rudolph Ehrenstein--a nephew of Madame von Hohenfels. He has just lost
his mother, and is travelling in search of distraction. Some of these
young ladies will doubtless take compassion on him.”

“Yes, with that pretty face and doleful forsaken air he will not have
to go far for a willing consoler.”

“It would be the very best thing for him,” said the popular poet,
joining them. “One never knows how much to believe of gossip,
especially in this centre of _canards_, but they speak of him already
as the Natzelhuber’s latest flame.”

“Good heavens! Not possible, surely!” cried the old lady, in a tremor
of delighted horror. “He has the face of an angel.”

“Angels have been known to fall, Madame,” said the poet, with his best
Parisian bow and cynical shrug, throwing a challenging glance at his
neighbour as if to defy him to prove that Théophile Gautier or Dumas
could have capped an observation more neatly; and then quoted with a
beatific consciousness of his own smartness: “L’ange n’est complet que
lorsqu’ il est déchu.”

“Talk of women’s tongues! You men have never a good word to say either
of yourselves or of us.”

“Is there not a proverb to that effect as regards the ladies?”

“Calumny, my friend, pure calumny. Men have had the monopoly of
proverbs, and, of course, they have used them as they have used
everything else, against us. It does not follow that even the clever
man believes all the smart and satirical things he says of our sex,
but an arrow shot at us looks a smarter achievement than a juster
arrow aimed at yourselves. And the smart thing goes down to a duller
posterity, and there’s your proverb. Truth is as likely to be in it as
in the bottom of the proverbial well!”

“I shall seek it henceforth in you, Madame. Can you tell me if there
is any truth in the announcement that the Natzelhuber is coming
to-night?”

“Madame von Hohenfels looks certainly anxious and doubtful. You know
Mademoiselle Natzelhuber has an alarming reputation.”

“Oh, yes, abominably eccentric--and ugly,” sighed the poet.

Rudolph Ehrenstein, modestly unconscious that the reliable voice of
Public Opinion, glancing at his wings, had been pleased to pronounce
them singed and soiled, had retreated into a deep recess and was
nearly hidden by a silk curtain and tall palm branches. He sat down
on a low chair, and rejoiced that here, at least, there were no bare
obtrusive shoulders and brilliant orbs to dazzle him, no scented skirts
to trouble him, and that the murmur of varied tongues and voices and
the whirr of fans came to him in softened sound. He was just closing
his eyes to think of the old dim castle of Rapolden Kirchen and his
beloved mother, whose subdued manner and tone seemed to him the more
exquisite to remember because of the noisy and strongly perfumed women
around him, when a man near the door caught sight of him through his
gold-rimmed eyeglass, and starting forward, burst into his retreat
with clamorous recognition and two extended hands, the offering of
demonstrative friendship.

“Delighted, charming boy, delighted to see you so soon again. Heard
from the baroness you were expected in Athens, but no idea you would be
here to-night.”

“I arrived last evening,” said Ehrenstein, standing up and grasping the
proffered hands with a look of relief, as if he found the necessary
restorative in their touch. “What a quantity of strangers there are
here! All their different languages have made my head ache.”

His companion was a rich Greek merchant from Trieste, who was arrayed
in extremely florid evening dress and wore a very large white camelia.
He glanced at the boy’s mourning studs and sighed as if recalled
suddenly to the stern sorrows of life, and then blew a little whiff
which expressed the recognised evanescence of even sorrow and
bereavement, and thrust their presence from him.

“Well, you see, we Greeks have to draw very largely upon foreign
countries for our entertainments,” he said, slipping his arm into
Ehrenstein’s and dragging him gently out of the recess. “As a Greek
from abroad, I regret to say that it would be impossible to mix with
the pure Athenians for any purposes of social pleasure. They can
neither talk, dance, nor eat like civilised beings. In fact, my dear
Ehrenstein, they are not civilised.”

“What a dreadful thing to say of the descendants of the ancient
Greeks,” laughed Rudolph.

“Oh, the ancient Greeks!” exclaimed Agiropoulos, airily. “If you are
going back to those old fossils, I will candidly admit that I am out of
my depth. There is nothing I am more heartily sick of than the ancient
Greek. There’s Jarovisky over there, a perfect lunatic on the subject.
Homer for breakfast, Homer for dinner, and Homer for supper admits of
variety with improvement. He reads Homer on the terrace by moonlight,
and falls asleep with Homer under his pillow. My opinion of the ancient
Greeks is, that they were not one whit better than their amiable
representatives of to-day. They were men of great natural eloquence
and literary gifts, and knew how to lay on their colours with an eye
to future generations. But we have only their version, and it would
require at least twenty connecting evidences to prove the word of one
Athenian. Why, to hear them talk to-day, one might imagine theirs the
chief nation of Europe, and Athens its handsomest capital--dull, ugly
little Athens!”

They were walking round the rooms, when Agiropoulos, surveying the
crowd through his aggressive eyeglass, suddenly asked his friend if he
had been introduced to any ladies.

“I have been introduced to nobody yet except the Greek Minister--oh, I
forgot, a young English attaché.”

“Ah, I see the baroness is resolved to keep you hovering yearningly
upon the skirts of paradise. Never mind, my child, I will find you
a houri. There is a very handsome brunette, the prettiest girl in
Athens. Her French is fit for the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and her _dot_
acceptable should your views incline that way. My faith, I would not
object to either myself, but my time has not come for settling down.
Butterfly, you know, from sweet to sweet, and that sort of thing. Sad
dog, as those droll English say. Ah!----”

Before Rudolph could demand an explanation of this singular and
enigmatic avowal, understood by even such white innocence as his to
hint at something darkly and yet pleasantly irregular, the Baroness
von Hohenfels bore down upon the young men with a disturbed expression
of face. She tapped Agiropoulos on the shoulder with her fan, and said
hurriedly:--

“My dear M. Agiropoulos, I am greatly alarmed about the Natzelhuber.
You, I believe, are the best authority on her movements and caprices.
Do you know why she has not come?”

“I do not, indeed, Madame la Baronne,” answered Agiropoulos, bowing,
and twirling his moustache with a fatuous smile. “But it is not so very
late.”

“Don’t you know what very primitive hours we keep in Athens?” the
baroness cried testily. “Did you see her to-day, Rudolph?”

Young Ehrenstein flushed and shrank a little with a hint of anxious
pain in his blue eyes.

“No, aunt, I called, but Mademoiselle Natzelhuber was not visible,” he
said.

Agiropoulos looked at him sharply with an imperceptible frown, and
then, turning to his hostess, resumed his smile of fatuous security,
and said:

“To relieve your doubts, Madame la Baronne, I will drive at once to the
lady’s house, and carry her back with me, if even I must employ force.”

“Do so, and you will earn my lasting gratitude. We are all dying to
hear her play, and her name was the attraction to-night,” and Madame
von Hohenfels brightened. “Come with me, Rudolph. I must find you some
lively girl to chat you into good-humour. Delay as little as possible,
M. Agiropoulos.”

Agiropoulos bowed low and retired, while Rudolph silently offered his
arm to his aunt, shrinking still and wounded.

“It is a great disappointment that M. Reineke is not here to-night.
He, also, is a new lion--singularly handsome and captivating and very
clever, they say. He created quite a sensation in Paris last winter.
But he got ill coming from Egypt and I suppose he will make his first
appearance at the Jaroviskys’ ball next week.”

“Is there to be a ball next week?” Rudolph asked listlessly.

“Of course; are we not all vying to honour an English Cabinet minister?
He will probably write about us when he gets home.”

“Who are those girls laughing so loudly?” Rudolph asked, with no
particular desire for information.

“They belong to the American legation. Not exactly the choice I would
have you make in girls’ society, my dear,--intolerably loud and
vulgar,” said the Baroness, surveying them through her long-handled and
elegant _face-à-main_ which she raised to her eyes. “They represent the
United States--most deplorably. I want you to cultivate the society of
the Mowbray Thomases--English Embassy. Here is the son, Vincent, a very
nice boy who can speak intelligible French for a wonder, and will, I am
sure, be glad to teach you tennis and cricket.”

“He is quite a boy,” cried Rudolph, cheerfully. “I shall be less afraid
of him than of your lively young ladies.”

Agiropoulos had in the meantime driven to Academy Street, where
Mademoiselle Photini Natzelhuber was staying. He found the house in
complete darkness, and only when he had made a considerable noise did
a somnolent and astonished servant thrust her head out of a window and
demand his business.

“Where is your mistress, Polyxena?” cried Agiropoulos.

“In bed, sir.”

“In the name of all that is wonderful, has Photini gone clean out of
her senses? In bed, and all Athens waiting for her at the Austrian
Embassy!”

Polyxena leisurely unbolted the door, and Agiropoulos rushed past her
up the stairs, and hammered frantically outside Photini’s bedroom door.

“Photini, get up and dress this instant. I insist. I swear I will not
leave off knocking until you come out--not even at the risk of driving
all the neighbours mad!” he shouted.

“What the devil do you want at this time of night, Agiropoulos?” was
roared back to him. “I will box that girl’s ears for letting you in.
Stop that row. You must be drunk.”

“Come, no nonsense, Photini. I am serious, on my soul I am. You’ve been
expected at the Austrian Embassy for the last hour and a half. It is
just eleven, and Athenian receptions break up at midnight, you know.”

“I suppose they want me to play. I had forgotten all about it. The
mischief take the idiots! For goodness’ sake stop that noise, and I’ll
get up.”

It was a little after eleven when a murmur ran through the rooms on the
Patissia Road that Agiropoulos had returned with the missing Pleiad.
Every one pressed eagerly forward to see the great and eccentric
artist. Corns were gratuitously trodden upon and the proprietors forgot
to swear, dresses were crushed, and no lady remembered to cover a cross
expression with a mendacious smile and a feeble “It does not matter;”
all faces wore an expression of open anxiety, curiosity, and wonder.

“Quite a bear, I hear,” somebody whispered, audibly, “bites and snarls
even. Dresses abominably, and swears like a trooper.”

Mademoiselle Natzelhuber entered the room a little in advance of
Agiropoulos, whose smile was one of radiant self-approval and
triumph,--he quite enjoyed this open recognition of his _ménage
irregulier_. Photini wore a look of hardly concealed contempt and
indifference, and advanced slowly, meeting the multitudinous gaze
of curiosity with a regal calmness. Her dress was dowdy and common:
she was stout and low-sized, but she succeeded in carrying off these
details with truly majestic grace. It was impossible to titter or
sneer; despite all shocks of disappointment, it was impossible not to
meet gravely that grave indifferent glance, and recognise a strange
kind of superiority in its lambent topaz imperturbability. All eyes
were fixed upon her but two boyish blue eyes that, after one swift
and inquiring look, were averted in a poignant confusion of emotions.
Instead, they rested on Agiropoulos.

Madame von Hohenfels moved towards the artist with a gracious smile of
welcome, and expressed her pleasure in very cordial terms,--she could
afford to be exuberant now that she was relieved of the terror of this
woman’s possible defection.

“This, I believe, is your first appearance in Athens after a long
absence, Mademoiselle Natzelhuber.”

“Where is your piano, Madame? You did not invite me for the sake of my
handsome face, I suppose. Then pass compliments and come to business.”

“Qu’elle est grossière,” was the comment that ran round the room,
and the English Cabinet Minister, the Right Honourable Samuel
Warren, gazed at her through his eyeglass, and lisped, “What a very
extraordinary creature!” One does not mix in the highest diplomatic
circles for nothing, and the Baroness von Hohenfels was perfectly
competent to extricate herself and her guests from an awkward situation
with both grace and glory. She laughed musically, as if something
specially witty had been said, and led the way to the grand piano. The
seat was a high one, and Photini tranquilly kicked it down, and gazed
around her in search of a low stool. Agiropoulos rushed forward with a
chair of the required height, and the artist sat down amid universal
silence and touched the keys lightly, upon which her nose might
conveniently have played, so near were both. After a few searching
bars she burst into Liszt’s splendid orchestral arrangement of “Don
Giovanni.”

Agiropoulos cared nothing whatever about her music, and wandered round
the room till he reached the place where Ehrenstein was standing.

“That was a delicate mission, eh, Ehrenstein?” he said, with his
persistent smile. “Successfully accomplished too.”

“Its success is as apparent as its delicacy,” retorted Rudolph. He was
filled with astonishment at the wave of bitterness towards this oily
self-satisfied Greek that swelled within him.

Agiropoulos caught the unmistakable ironical tone.

“Might I request you to define your precise meaning, my young friend?”
he asked, drily.

“That is easily done. You have acted to-night as no gentleman should.”

All girlish timidity had faded out of Rudolph’s eyes, which flashed
like gem fire in the sparkle of honest indignation.

“Ho! is that where we are?” cried the Greek, with a low exasperating
laugh, as he twisted his moustache and examined the gloss of his shoes.
“And the crime?”

“In permitting my aunt to speak to you in a distinctly offensive way of
Mademoiselle Natzelhuber, and in smiling as you did when you entered
the room with her.”

“My dear fellow, what a simpleton you are to talk in this superannuated
style about the Natzelhuber.”

“Mademoiselle Natzelhuber is a woman. An honourable gentleman makes no
distinction between women as regards certain laws. The same courtesy
and consideration are due to all.”

“Don’t tilt against windmills in this extravagant way, Ehrenstein,”
said Agiropoulos, laughing good-humoredly. “Why, Photini would be the
first to laugh at us for a pair of imbeciles if she heard that we
quarrelled about her. She does not want consideration. She is rather a
fine fellow in a rough and manly way of her own--very rough, I admit.”

“Pray, make no mistake about me. I object to such vulgar classification
as you are disposed to make,” cried Rudolph, sharply.

“I’ll be as wide and as refined as you like--platonic, artistic,
spiritual--whichever suits you best. But we may not doubt the
admiration, my friend.”

“To prevent gross misinterpretation, I will give you the situation.
I hold myself willingly and proudly enslaved to such genius as hers.
I would gladly sit in silence all my life if my ear might be filled
with music such as hers. For the sake of that, I am ready to offer my
friendship, and forget the rest.”

Rudolph stood back a little with a listening rapt expression, and
Agiropoulos glanced contemptuously down at Photini. Agiropoulos was
constitutionally incapable of understanding disinterested admiration.
His sentiments were coarse and definite, and to him were unknown the
conditions of strife, probation, unrewarded and unexacting love,
self-distrust and tremulous aspiration and fear; above all, was he
free from a young man’s humble reverence of womanhood, which, in the
abstract, was to him something so greatly inferior to himself as to
be below consideration. Cheerful it must be to escape the hesitations
and exquisitely painful flutterings between doubt and hope, and the
thousand and one causes of clouded bliss, to the more fastidious and
ideal Northern nature. He looked forward to a suitable marriage when
his relations with Photini should come to an end, but was not concerned
with the question of choice. Girls are plentiful enough, and handsome
or ugly, they come to the same thing in the long run: mothers of
children of whose looks their husbands are unconscious.

In response to the loud applause which greeted her last chord,
Mademoiselle Natzelhuber rose slowly, bent her head as low as her
knees, the mossy black curls rolling over her forehead like a veil, and
her hands hanging straight down beside her. No one present had ever
seen a lady bow in this masculine fashion, and following the breathless
magnificence of her playing it so awed her spectators that some moments
of dead silence passed before they were able to break into their
many-tongued speech.

“Let me have some cognac, if you please,” she said, curtly, turning to
her delighted hostess.

What will not the mistress of a salon endure if she may furnish her
guests with a thoroughly new sensation! And certainly Mademoiselle was
a very novel sensation.

The cognac was promptly administered to the artist, and the people
began to move about and express their opinions.

“That girl is tremendously admired here,” said Agiropoulos to Rudolph,
drawing his attention to a noticeable group of young ladies. “Her name
is Mademoiselle Eméraude Veritassi. She was not christened Eméraude,
I may mention, but we are so very Parisian at Athens that we insist
on translating everything, even our own names, into French. The girl
beside her is _Miss Mary_ Perpignani, and her brother _Mr. John_
Perpignani, though neither of them knows a word of English. It is
_chic_ with us. I am Tonton. I can’t exactly say what language it may
be, but it isn’t Greek, and that you see is the main thing. My sister
Persephone calls herself Proserpine.”

“What bad taste! Persephone is surely a beautiful name.”

“Ah, but it is Greek--not fashionable, not _chic_. And if we have no
_chic_, my friend, we have no _raison d’être_.”

“Who is that going to play now?” asked Rudolph.

“Good heavens! it’s Melpomene--and after the Natzelhuber!”

No wonder there was much admiration expressed at the nerve of the
lady who bravely undertook to play such a masterpiece as Chopin’s
“Barcarolle” in the presence of a master not given to handle offenders
gently. But everyone was disposed to receive the amiable imperfection
of an amateur with indulgence, while it was impossible to conjecture
the feelings of the short-haired woman who was quietly sipping her
second glass of cognac on an ottoman and listening with a fixed neutral
stare in her yellow eyes. When the piece was over, the artist rose, and
said with awful measured politeness:

“Does Madame imagine that she has played Chopin’s ‘Barcarolle?’
Doubtless Madame has mistaken the name. I will play the ‘Barcarolle’
now.”

It is easy to understand the feelings with which Madame retired, and
the feelings aroused in the breast of Madame’s irate husband, who
glared vengeance from the other end of the room; and for one moment
every one recognised that a _star_ is not the most agreeable ornament
of society, but this idea was soon swept away upon magic sound.
Could there be anything dreamed of on earth like the beauty of the
“Barcarolle” so played? Enthusiasm reached the white-heat of passion.
Ladies tore the flowers from their bosoms, men from their button-holes
and flung them at her; faces went white and red, and eyes filled with
tears. And there stood Agiropoulos smiling blandly and taking half the
triumph as his own, while Rudolph had gone back to his recess and was
sobbing unrestrainedly in sheer ecstasy.

When the first wave of emotion had subsided, and the artist had bowed
her acknowledgment in the same curious way, too contemptuous even to
shake the flowers off her person, her host stepped forward to offer her
his arm and lead her towards the buffet in another room. Somebody else
stepped forward with gracious intent, a young self-sufficient viscount,
the nephew of the distinguished French minister. He bowed low, and
acquainted her with the agreeable fact that he had never heard anything
like her playing of the “Barcarolle,” and his regret that Chopin
himself could not hear it. Mademoiselle looked at him meditatively for
some trying seconds, then said calmly:

“Do you really believe, sir, that I require your approval? Be so good,
sir, as to confine your observations on music to your equals.”

“Truly a remarkable and slightly disconcerting person,” said the
English Cabinet Minister, arranging his eyeglass the better to observe
her. “Extraordinary, egad! I suppose artists are bound to be erratic.
But don’t you think they could play just as well with hair like
everybody else, and decent manners?”

His companion was of opinion they could, and suggested that the artist
in question would create a lively sensation in a London drawing-room.

“By Jove, yes. Suppose we strike a bargain with her, and carry her back
with us. We might label her--‘authentic specimen of a Greek barbarian,
picked up near the Acropolis; dangerous.’”

All the guests now struggled forward in search of refreshments. But
Rudolph strolled about waiting for an opportunity to see Photini
alone. His gratitude and admiration were at that exalted pitch when
an outpouring is imperative. He knew nothing of the vile report that
had been circulated concerning his own relations with her, and sought
her with the damning candour of complete innocence. He found her, and
the discovery sent a shock of horror through him that almost stopped
the beating of his heart. She was in the centre of a noisy laughing
group of men, smoking a cigarette and holding an empty liqueur glass
in her hand into which the Baron von Hohenfels was pouring some
brandy, laughing boisterously and joking hideously. Every nerve within
him thrilled in an agony of shame. This the glorious interpreter of
heavenly sound! This the artist he so passionately desired to reverence
as a woman, while worshipping her genius! He was half prompted to
go away in silence, when his eyes caught the sarcastic triumph of
Agiropoulos’ smile. With a mighty effort he gulped down the bitterness
of disappointment and shocked surprise, and bravely went forward.

“I have been looking for you, Mademoiselle,” he said coldly. “I wanted
so much to thank you for the delight you have given me to-night--this
addition to past delight,” he added, holding out his hand.

“Ah! my little Austrian page!” Photini cried, laughing into his
solemn grieved face. “I got your card to-day. You must come and see
me again. The ‘Mélodiés Hongroises’ you know. I’ve promised you that.
A pretty fellow is your nephew, Baron, and quite as charming as he is
pretty. But too grave, too grave, and too--_sans reproche_,” she added
cynically.

All the men looked at Rudolph curiously, and laughed. The boy flushed
scarlet, bowed and walked away. The rooms were rapidly thinning, and
recognising him as a member of the Hohenfels family, several guests
stopped to shake hands with him as they passed him. He received their
advances mechanically, hardly heard a word addressed to him, and was
still in a dream when his aunt and her husband returned to join him in
the empty chambers.




CHAPTER II.

THE BARON VON HOHENFELS EXPRESSES AN OPINION.


That night Rudolph did not go to bed. He spent some hours walking up
and down his room in a nervous agitation he could by no means account
for. It seemed to him that he had been dropped into a disagreeably
topsy-turvy world, and the thought made him wretched and unhappy:
dissatisfied and perplexed by his own state, fierce in a vague kind
of resentment against Agiropoulos, and filled with an immeasurable
grief for Photini. With such soul in her fingers she appeared to him
through an ugly cloud like a battered and draggled angel, and he sat
disconsolately gazing at the blue and golden flames from the beautiful
star-fire above, and asked himself how had it happened, and was there
for her henceforth no struggling back into the paths of sweet womanhood
from which she had strangely and openly strayed?

Yet why should he grieve so passionately for Photini? No affair of
his if she courted slander and irreverent familiarity; nor yet if she
indulged in inadmissible tastes in public, and wounded and insulted
all who came near her. His own birth and its responsibilities surely
excluded him from such preoccupations, and his natural fastidiousness
made relations, however slight and flexible, with a woman like
Photini impossible. This he knew well, and despite the knowledge
felt miserably sad and unquiet. He wanted so much that she should not
degrade his high ideal of the artist who has received nature’s patent
of nobility, and a lonely impressionable boy like Rudolph could not
afford to stand by tamely and watch the dethroning of his idol. For
Photini had been his idol long before they had met. Her name had been
borne into his retreat from many quarters, and no one had hinted to
him her unlovableness--her disreputableness. Liszt had only spoken to
him of her genius with enthusiasm. Had his small circle deliberately
conspired to keep him in ignorance of this cruel reality, while he
was wandering and losing himself in a forest of delicate and poetic
illusions?--building hope upon hope of an unanalysable nature until his
whole happiness grew to bind itself round the thought of this unknown
woman crowned by art with a glory greater than her womanhood? Photini
Natzelhuber! His mother had often told him of the time she first came
to Vienna, a slip of a girl, with a curly boyish head and the strangest
topaz eyes. Mossy dark hair and topaz eyes with divine fingers--what
more did it require to set aflame a dreamy imaginative lad? And when
strangers visited the Castle at Rapolden Kirchen and spoke of her,
he never seemed to understand that years had flown and left her less
girlish, but pictured her like Art, like a goddess ever young. And when
he read of knightly reverence and allegiance, he told himself that one
day he should go abroad and seek Photini. He dreamed of no conditions
or reward, not of marriage or of love in the ordinary sense. To wear
her colours, serve her in true devotion, honour her above all women,
and humbly sue the privilege to obey her commands and caprices with
some considerable recreative pauses for music--this was Rudolph’s
innocent dream. Remember he was brought up by a high-bred mother, all
grace and gentle benignity, a woman who wore her widowhood like a
sovereign lady to whom man’s homage was a sweet claim. And her pretty
and impracticable theories but helped to feed the fires of a fatally
romantic temperament, while his complete and unboylike isolation left
him an easy prey to the riotous play of fancy. Then is it any wonder
that reality at the outset should both crush and bewilder him?

He opened the window, and leant far out with his head against his hand,
that the cold night air might blow upon him. Through the confusion of
his mind he could gather no dim or possible conclusion upon which to
shape immediate action. He dreaded meeting Photini again, for he felt
he could never forgive her for the havoc she had made of all his bright
hopes. Then softly through the silence of the night waved in echoing
dimness the lovely strains of the “Barcarolle,” with its ever recurrent
note of passionate melancholy, its very voluptousness of exquisite pain
and the musical rhythm of the oars breaking through the water murmur.
The memoried sounds flushed his cheek with trembling delight, and he
rushed to his violin and tried to pick out the dominant melody. But who
could ever hope to play it as she did? And, happily, he became mindful
of the possible objections of others to this faint nocturnal music, and
generously put up his instrument.

“Ah!” he sighed, “if Photini be hardly a woman, what an artist, good
heavens!” Must much not be forgiven undeniable genius? And was all
the ideal love irrevocably vanished? If only he could know. For this
uncertainty disturbed him and made him unhappy, and unhappiness is not
exactly the condition that enables a young man to see clearly into his
own mind or into anybody else’s. He would try to sleep, and then this
tempest of emotion and harassing conflict would blow over and leave his
eyes clearer to see what he ought to do and leave undone.

But Rudolph did not sleep, and a sleepless night, we know, works
disastrously upon the nerves and looks. When he appeared downstairs his
uncle glanced up casually from his papers, and, stirring his chocolate,
said in surprise:

“Why, whatever is the matter with you, Rudolph? This is too absurd. A
girl wouldn’t look so battered after a first ball.”

“Well, I am battered, I suppose. I’ve passed a bad night and I am not
used to it,” said Rudolph listlessly.

“A bad night! a fellow of your age! Is it possible? Fact is, my dear
boy, your mother has ruined you. Nothing worse than to pamper and
coddle up lads as if they were girls. Your mother had no business to
keep you immured in that ghostly old place with no hardier society than
her own.”

“I wish she were there still and I with her,” said poor Rudolph, with a
little break in his voice and a faint clouding of his blue eyes.

“Of course, of course,” hastily cried the volatile baron, whom all
evidence of emotion struck chill. “The wish does you and her credit.
But all the same, it is not exactly fit training for a boy. Makes him
whimsical and sensitive and shy--a lively prey for all adventurers
male and female, especially female. Fact is, it is most enervating and
absurd. You ought to have seen something of society long ago, Rudolph;
you ought indeed. Men and manners--you know your classics?”

“That is just my difficulty. Men and manners--to find them
disappointing and strange. My brief glimpse of them has both sickened
and saddened me.”

“Nonsense! You must face life like a man; not dream it away like a puny
sentimental girl. You want backbone and nerve, Rudolph, you do indeed.
Men are not saints nor women angels. Well, what of that? They are not
expected to be so until they get into the next world, which time,
as far as I am concerned, I trust will be postponed to the furthest
limits. Then the ladies find their wings and the men get canonised,
that is, if they haven’t taken snuff. I believe a very estimable saint
was once refused canonisation because he took snuff; can’t swear to it,
however. For the rest, my boy, adopt the aphorism of the wise German,
who was good enough to discover that everything is arranged for the
best in this best of all possible worlds.”

“You can take things lightly, uncle, but I cannot.”

“Of course not,” rejoined the baron, lighting a cigar. “Whoever heard
of a young man taking anything lightly except his debts?”

“I do not ask that men should be saints nor women angels.”

“It is considerate of you to be so unexacting. Pass the saintship of
your own sex, young men have the extremely awkward habit of quarrelling
with women as soon as they discover they are not angels.”

“But I do seek for evidences of gentlemanly feeling, for decent
manners and chivalrous speech,” Rudolph went on, ignoring the Baron’s
interruptions.

“Now you are hardly so unexacting. This strikes me as demanding
something more than sanctity, for it is quite possible that a saint may
be an ill-mannered cad,” said the baron gravely.

“I hope, sir, that you will not be offended with me if I express a wish
to return to Austria,” said Rudolph, after a pause, nervously devoted
to industrious crumbling.

“Indeed, Rudolph,” cried the baron, facing him with a disconcerting
steadiness of gaze, “I am very seriously offended to hear you express
such a wish. Your aunt and I have cherished the hope that you would
find your stay with us pleasant enough to make your visit a prolonged
one. What has upset you? If there is anything we can do to make you
comfortable, I beg you will state your wishes and count them fulfilled.”

“Nothing, nothing indeed, I assure you. You and my dear aunt are
kindness itself, and I am most truly grateful. But I am not happy,
uncle. Do not blame me if I seem capricious.”

“Seem! Well, and are you not?”

“I cannot help it if I am perplexed and grieved. I think I should
feel less troubled in Rapolden Kirchen, that is all,” Rudolph slowly
explained, bending his head with apparent anxiety over the little heap
of crumbs he was making with his knife.

His uncle watching him narrowly saw the sensitive lips tremble under
the soft moustache.

“Come, unveil the mystery, Rudolph,” he said with a quiet smile. “Who
is the woman? For, Gad, it looks deucedly like a first prick of love.
Nothing else smarts so keenly at your age.”

Rudolph shrank visibly from the coarse frank glance of worldly eyes
directed upon a wound so intangible, so especially delicate, and
yet open to misconstruction. To grieve about a woman argues the
existence of the commoner sentiment, and he loathed the thought of
his fine instinct being so misinterpreted. But could a bland and
heavy ambassador, who smokes the best cigars and lounges on the
softest cushions in irreproachable attire, skilful in gastronomy and
a connoisseur in feminine points, be possibly expected to seize and
rightly interpret the daintier emotions and pangs of a more exquisite
and spiritual organism?

“There is nothing of that matter in my trouble, but I believe I am
unfitted for society. I don’t like it; much that others, possibly wiser
and better than I, hardly note offends me.”

“You find the charming illusions nurtured in the seclusion of Rapolden
Kirchen rudely dispelled,” suggested the baron, looking what he felt, a
trifle bored by the lad’s heavy earnestness, but admirably sustained by
the comfort of good tobacco. “That happens to every one, though I have
no doubt it would afford you immeasurable satisfaction to look upon
your case as exceptional. All this is quite correct, since it is so,
and if this very interesting and pleasant world realised the fastidious
ideal of youth, my dear fellow, it would not be a fit place for any
sensible man to live in. Be reasonable, Rudolph. Give poor society
another chance before you decide to abandon it to inevitable perdition.
There will be plenty of balls presently. Stay and see if you cannot
reconcile your flighty imagination to a waltz or two with some pretty
Athenians. You may not credit it, but there are two very pretty girls
here.”




CHAPTER III.

FAREWELL TO YOU!--TO YOU GOOD CHEER!


Given a young man of average resolution in force against an
acknowledged and violently self-disapproved inclination, seated in a
pleasant morning-room, with clear broad rays of December sunshine,
as it knows how to shine in winter in Greece, pouring in through the
lattice-work of the windows, every leaf in the garden singing and
proclaiming that out-of-doors there is gladness of sight as well as
gladness of sound, to soothe the mind of restless and melancholy youth.
It will go hard with that young man to resist the temptation to get
up, shake out the draggled plumes of thought, and canter away into the
country--or why own an uncle who has a horse or two to be had for the
asking? One cannot lock oneself away in a dismal chamber merely as
a correction against one’s own irregular impulses. Besides, was not
his resolution there to act as constable, and move them on if unruly
subjects showed any tendency to loiter on the way? So Rudolph made
himself look very spruce in a dark green riding coat he had bought in
Vienna, and much more suited to the forest depths of Rapolden Kirchen
than the high-road of a modern town, put on a pair of brown gauntlet
gloves, also scenting too suspiciously of the forest, with long black
boots, and he only wanted a forester’s plumed hat to complete the
picture. But he looked exceedingly handsome, and as, abroad, all
eccentricities of costume are credited to the English, he was taken as
a fair young milord as he cantered briskly along the Partissia Road.
Somebody met him and remarked afterwards to the Baron von Hohenfels
that “he had had the pleasure of seeing his nephew on horseback got up
like Gessler without the hat.”

On the youth rode, quite pleased with his green coat and his fine
boots, flicking away an occasional fly from the ear of his bay with a
dainty riding whip, and inhaling delightedly the soft odours of the
winter landscape. He would have liked to whistle or sing.

“Decidedly, Athens is a charming place,” he thought to himself. “All
my life till now I have been frozen at this time of the year, and
here the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the sea is smiling
out there its very bluest smile, and it would be impossible to paint
the lovely colours of the landscape. Hills everywhere, with a long
silver plain--the plain of Attica! I wonder where this road leads to?
Somewhere out into the country, but it does not matter. I’ll ride to
the end of it, and then I’ll ride back.”

It was an enchanting ride. He saw a little beer garden, and stopped to
see if the beer of Athens were as refreshing as its air. Well, no; he
thought on the whole that he had tasted better beer in Vienna, but the
place was quaint, and, who knows? perhaps a centre of classic memories.
He would look into Baedeker on his return. Certainly the waiters
left much to be desired in manner, in attendance, and in personal
appearance. Then he thought of riding back, paid his score, leaving
what would have been considered a satisfactory tip for any one but a
proverbially prodigal milord,--that article, with a proper respect for
itself, not being thought guilty of a knowledge of coppers,--mounted
his horse, and turned its head towards Athens.

His pace this time was not so brisk, nor did his face or the atmosphere
seem quite so happy. A vague consciousness of what was awaiting him was
slowly beginning to make itself felt through the recent satisfaction
of moral superiority, and that consciousness weighted his horse’s
step, as it weighted his own boy’s heart. And yet it was fate that was
guiding him, and not his own will. Of course not. When does the will
ever guide the unwilling, and where would any of us be in moments of
complicated decision, if it were not for that convenient scapegoat and
disentangler--Fate?

The museums afforded an excuse for putting off the evil moment, and a
lad was found to hold the bay while Rudolph went inside to examine the
curiosities. He did all that was to be done; stood gravely before Greek
vase after Greek vase, each one the exact counterpart of the other,
and while running the silver handle of his riding-whip along his lips,
told himself that it was really curious that so many intelligent people
should be found ready to go into ecstasies over this sort of thing,
and prefer to look at a cracked red vase with mad figures on it, to
a living pretty face, or a pine-fringed mountain, or the rain-clouds
scattered across the blue heavens. And then he gazed at the coins;
gazed at broken statues, and at whatever wearied and polite attendants
were willing to show him.

“Well, I am not archæological, that is certain,” he thought, mounting
his bay with an open alacrity that might be described as a silent
“Hurrah!” and flew--not to the Austrian Embassy, but to Academy Street.

When he asked Polyxena in his blandest tones if her mistress was
visible, that gracious minister unto art nodded, and pointed with her
thumb over her shoulder:

“Go up there, you will find her about.”

“The Natzelhuber has picked up a perfect counterpart of herself,”
Agiropoulos had remarked, which struck Rudolph as unpleasantly accurate.

When Rudolph, after a timid knock, opened the door, he found the
pianiste lying on a worn black sofa, smoking a cigarette and reading a
French novel, with three cats about her, one comfortably seated at her
head, and one across her feet. On the hearthrug there were two dogs
feigning to be asleep, in order the more conveniently to pry into the
affairs of man, and ridicule together the secrets they had discerned
between two blinks and a snap at a fly. The room was poorly furnished
and disorderly. A piano which had seen battle and better days, a faded
carpet; music on the floor, music on tables, music on chairs. Over
the mantelpiece a large portrait of Liszt, under it Rubinstein, above
Beethoven, and on either side Chopin and George Sand.

In this little group of portraits consisted the sole decoration of the
bare white walls, and a table in a corner held all that its owner had
amassed of precious things in her public career: her medals gained
at the Conservatoire, the few gifts of gold-studded objects she had
condescended in her most amenable moods to accept from grand dukes
and duchesses, and other courtly and wealthy admirers. She looked at
Ehrenstein without getting up, and said:

“What do you want?”

“Nothing,” he retorted, sitting down uninvited, and staring at her a
moment in cold inquiry.

She was not handsome, nay, she was ugly, and he was glad of it, being
still of the innocent belief that the face is the clear index of the
soul, and that a fair exterior cannot possibly cover a foul interior.
Then, too, the fact that she was unprepossessing made the course he was
contemplating so much the easier, since, however sincerely he might
regret the artist, he could not in conscience pretend it possible that
he should regret her face.

“You are doing well, my young friend,” laughed the Natzelhuber,
“excellently well, ’pon my soul. Not so long ago a convent girl could
not beat you in humility, and to-day you’ve cheek enough to lend even
Agiropoulos a little.”

“Oh!” said Rudolph, lifting his eyebrows, and then changing his tone,
suddenly, “but I did not mean to be rude.”

“Then what the devil do you mean?” the artist cried, lighting another
cigarette, with almost maternal precautions against disturbing her
cats. “Is that the way to come into a woman’s room, making yourself at
home without being asked, and impertinently saying you want nothing?”

“If it comes to that, I might ask, is it habitual for morning callers
to be received by their hostess lying on a sofa, nursing three cats,
smoking, and to be asked what they wanted?”

“A very reasonable attitude if it suits me, and a very reasonable
question. But since you are so susceptible and cantankerous, I’ll do
you the grace to change both to suit you,” she said good-humoredly,
removing her cats and placing them back on the sofa when she stood up;
then seating herself in an arm-chair, she added:

“Now, what have you come for?”

“To see you,” he said, smiling in spite of himself.

“Much obliged, I am sure. Well, look away, and in the meantime I’ll
finish this chapter of my book.”

The method of being severe and renunciatory, with a suitable Byronic
fold of the lip and stern compression of the brows--a kind of “fare
thee well, and if forever” expression--with a woman like this! Fancy
such a reception at twenty-one--when a young man is oldest, gravest,
intensest, and slightly melodramatic--from the object of shattered
dreams, the creature of agitated and complex feelings, and the cause
of poignant humiliation and vexed wonder! Yet the Natzelhuber was
unconsciously working most effectually for the boy’s good, and every
stab was a definite step on the road to recovery, and to a full lifting
of the veil of his own signal folly.

“What makes you look so unhappy, Ehrenstein?” she asked, after a
considerable pause. “Have you been playing?”

“No, mademoiselle. I did not know that I looked unhappy,” Rudolph
answered, colouring slightly.

“You do then. But there is no need to ask why you are unhappy. You wear
your nature in your face, and that proves to me that you will never be
happy--any more than my unlucky self.”

“Why?”

“Because you are too refined and too fastidious, and too everything
else that goes to the making of a first-class irrational humbug. A man
who wishes to make the best of life should be able to take a little
of its mud comfortably, whereas you are ready even to turn up your
aristocratic nose at a little elegant dust.”

“And you, mademoiselle? Why are you not happy?--for I cannot regard
dust or mud as the impediment here,” said Rudolph sarcastically.

“Oh, for just the contrary reason. I am too _gamine_! It comes to the
same thing, child. We are both mad, though reaching the condition by
diametrically opposed roads. My life is ending, and it is too late
now to change had I even the desire,--but yours is beginning. Get
rid of all that superfluous refinement, and tell yourself that there
are things more real and more absolutely necessary than sugar and
ice-cream.”

“What you say is very true, and I will remember it. But have you no
words of equal wisdom for your own case--although they say that doctors
are always better able to treat cholera in an alien body than a fit of
indigestion in themselves.”

“I could say much, but I could not be sure of finding an attentive
audience in myself. You see I am a poor devil. Not so long ago I
had the musical world at my feet--only two names above me, and the
second Rubinstein, not so far away. Like this we were crowned,” she
explained, making a dot on the cover of her book, and calling it Liszt,
with a second lower down, on the right hand side, which represented
Rubinstein, and the last, on the left, hardly more than a thought below
the second--“there! the Natzelhuber. And turn from my fame to reality.
An ugly old woman without a sou, alone, friendless, ill, the only
companions of my solitude these cats and dogs, and that,” she added,
pointing to a bottle of brandy.

“Is that not a very bad companion in solitude?” asked Rudolph, pained.

“Not so very bad when it keeps you from cutting your throat in a morbid
moment.”

“Mademoiselle, command me--command all your true friends, for surely
it is impossible that genius such as yours has gathered no honest
friendship along its path, as well as empty honours. Whatever my
shortcomings may be in the way of entertaining, I will prove a better
counsellor than your present one,” he urged, forgetting all about
himself in his anxiety to save her from the approach of certain
degradation.

She looked at him sharply, and then a curious softened light came into
the yellow eyes, making them once again beautiful and fascinating
with their old charm. She placed her two powerful little hands on his
shoulders, and seemed to gaze down into his very soul.

“My dear boy, I believe you are sincere. You are as good as you look,
and that is saying much. A tired old woman thanks you with all her
heart, but it is too late. Some demon fixed himself in that old woman’s
head when she was born, and never could manage to find its way out ever
since.”

Rudolph was on the point of protesting, when the door opened, and a
woman in black, followed by a young girl entered. The Natzelhuber
wheeled round brusquely, and demanded:

“Who are you, madame? and what brings you here, pray?”

The woman, who was stout and hot, stared anxiously, gasped, clutched
in vain at her scattered ideas, and murmured something relative to the
great honour the illustrious Mademoiselle Natzelhuber had done her in
consenting to teach her daughter Andromache, the interview having been
arranged for to-day.

“All very well. But that does not explain how you came to enter my room
unannounced,” cried the pianiste.

“Your servant sent us up, madame.”

“Polyxena!” roared the Natzelhuber, holding the door open.

Rudolph, ready to sink with shame at the unpleasantness of his
position, and eager to beat a hasty retreat, happened to look at the
girl who was staring from the stormy musician to him with large dark
blue eyes, dark fringed, and full of beseeching anxiety and fright. She
was a very pretty girl of somewhat exotic type: olive tints, blue-black
hair, with a thin, sedately arranged row of curls upon the forehead.
A face of meagre intelligence, without a shade of those subtle and
tremulous surprises, that delicate eloquence of opening sensibilities
and wonder, that make up so much of girlish beauty in northern races.
But Andromache was very touching in that moment of perplexity and
humiliation, and having looked at her once, Rudolph felt constrained to
look again--which he did willingly enough, though he blushed scarlet at
his own audacity.

“Polyxena, who the devil gave you leave to send me strangers when I am
engaged?”

“How was I to know you were engaged? Haven’t I my work to do without
looking after your danglers? Do you think I’m going to walk up here
every time your bell rings to find out what I am to say? Ah, then,
and upon my word, you’d have first to go into treaty with my Maker to
fashion me another pair of legs,” retorted Polyxena, turning on her
heel.

“That is the way she always answers me,” said the Natzelhuber, smiling.
“But I am fond of servants. They are the only part of humanity that has
retained a bit of originality or naturalness. When she is in a good
humour that girl delights me with the extraordinary things she says,”
she remarked to Rudolph. “So, madame, this is the young woman you want
me to turn into an artiste,” she exclaimed, menacingly, standing before
the trembling Andromache with her hands joined behind her.

After a long scrutiny, she thrust up her chin, and muttered:

“Pouf! she doesn’t look very bright.”

“Everybody says she is very clever, mademoiselle,” the girl’s mother
ventured to plead humbly, “and she plays really well.”

“Who is ‘everybody’? half a dozen brutes of Athenians who couldn’t tell
you the difference between C major and F sharp. If you have come here
to cite me the opinion of that distinguished and discriminating critic,
Everybody, madame, instead of waiting to hear mine, you and your
daughter may go about your business, and see what your Everybody will
do for you.”

Rudolph made a movement towards the door, hoping to escape unnoticed,
but the Natzelhuber, having had enough of her last visitors, detained
him with an invitation to smoke a cigarette, and drink a glass of
brandy.

“Wouldn’t you like me to play you something?”

“Not to-day, thanks. Another time. It’s just breakfast time,” he said
hurriedly.

She turned her back on him without another word, and opening the piano,
pointed to Andromache to sit down before it. The girl’s hands shook as
she removed her gloves, and Rudolph, going downstairs, could hear how
unsteady and timid were the first notes that she played.

“Weber’s ‘Invitation à la Danse.’ She will surely fly into another rage
when she hears that,” he thought. “But I do wish she would be kind and
encouraging to the poor girl. Such pretty eyes as she has! I have never
seen prettier. Just like the March violets in Rapoldenkirchen that I
used to gather for my mother.”

In the meantime the frightened owner of these eyes like the March
violets of Rapoldenkirchen was passing through the worst moment of her
existence. Two bars of the “Invitation” served to bring down the wrath
of artistic majesty on her head, and very nearly on her hands.

“What do you call that?”

“Weber’s ‘Invitation,’” died away in the girl’s throat.

“Weber’s ‘Rubbish,’ you idiot! It is as little like the ‘Invitation’ as
the music of my cats is like the ‘Funeral March.’ But you have a good
touch. Something may be made of you when you have learnt your scales,
and know how to sit before a piano. Seat low, thumb covered, body
tranquil. Are you prepared to regard yourself as a beginner, with less
knowledge than a stammering infant--or do you still cherish the opinion
of ‘Everybody’ that you are very clever?”

“I know very well that I am quite ignorant, and it is because I want to
learn that I have come to you,” Andromache said, with a simple dignity
that mollified the artist.

“Well, I see you are not a fool like your respectable mother,” she
said. “Now go home and practice as many scales as you can for three or
four or even more hours a day, and come to me at the end of a week.
Hard work and slow results, remember.”




CHAPTER IV.

AN ATHENIAN HOUSEHOLD.


Among the many curious customs of the modern Athenians--at least those
unprovided with permanent tents--is their habit of changing residence
every first of September. When they go into each new house, they have
at last found their earthly paradise, which they at once begin to
maltreat in every possible way, until, by summer-time there is hardly
a clean spot left on any of the walls, a door left with a handle, a
cupboard with a lock, or a window with a fastening entire in its panes.
Then the earthly paradise, is described in terms as exaggeratedly
expressive of the reverse of comfort; the family look around for the
next September move, and a new home or flat is found with the same fate
awaiting it. The only rational way of accounting for this startling
custom, which would greatly disturb any reasonable person compelled to
follow it, is by supposing that the natives find something exciting and
morally or mentally beneficial in their annual migrations.

In compliance with the law, Andromache’s mother, the previous
September, had moved from a flat on the second floor in Solon Stettore,
a ground floor flat with plenty of underground accommodation, in one
of the many yet unnamed streets that break from the foot of Lycabettus
like concentric rays to drop into the straight line of Solon Street,
and proceed on a wider and recognised course down among the larger
thoroughfares. These baby passages are rarely traversed by any but
those who enjoy the qualified happiness of living in them. There is
always a river of flowing water edging their entrance like a barrier,
which a lady with dainty boots would doubtless view with disapprobation
if she were asked to ford it upon an afternoon call. Children by the
hundred play about these streets--variously coloured children, ragged,
ugly, showing every condition but that of cleanliness and beauty, with
little twisted mouths and sharp black eyes that always seem to be
measuring in the spectator a possible foe; with coarse matted hair,
or shaven heads looking like nothing more than the skin of a mouse
worn as a skull cap, or dirty straw, bleached nearly white, hanging
about them in unapproachable wisps and understood to be fair hair. As
well as the householders, the infants, and running water, the streets
offer, as further attraction, the cries of the itinerant merchants,
who draw their carts up the dusty, unpaved little hills, and yell
out the contents of their store in a way only to be heard in burning
cities, where yelling, public and domestic, becomes an art, cultivated
with zeal, and heard with joy--by all but the nervous traveller. All
day long these vendors come and go, and the aforementioned happy
householders need only appear on their thresholds to buy stuffs, soap,
candles, sponges, carpets, etc.

In the sweet spot Kyria Karapolos had pitched her tent with her
family, consisting of two sons, the eldest a dashing captain of the
Artillery, known in town as Captain Miltiades, understood to have no
relations, and to sleep on horseback, dine on gallantry and the recital
of his own prowess, and enjoy relaxation from equine exercise in the
ball-room. The second son, Themistocles, a dapper little fellow, had a
position in the Corinthian Bank, not very remunerative, but enabling
him to dress with what he considered Parisian taste, and walk Stadion
Street with two or three other fashionable youths, all equally gloved,
caned--and killing. He had a violin too, and disliking his family,
when constrained to remain at home, spent the time in his own room,
which looked out upon the sloping gardens of the French School, and
tortured the silence by irritating this poor instrument, deluded into
a fond belief that he was playing Gounod’s “Ave Maria” and Schubert’s
“Serenade.”

He cherished a hopeless passion for a young lady in the next street
who had no fortune; neither had he, nor, what is worse in an aspiring
husband, any prospect of making one.

A girl came next, Julia, of abnormal plainness of feature, considerably
heightened by a pimpled, sallow complexion and a furtive, untrustworthy
expression. Unlike the rest of her family, she had no special
qualification, but while the others enjoyed every kind of discomfort,
her fortune was pleasantly counted into the Corinthian Bank, to be
taken out the day a husband should present himself for her and for it,
especially for it. In this land of dowered maidens young gentlemen of
expensive tastes and empty purses find it feasible and honourable
to incur debts on the understanding that they will be paid out of
somebody’s dowry by and by. Personal looks or qualities are secondary
questions, so the absence of attractions in Julia did not weigh in the
eyes of her brother and mother in their anxiety to marry her.

The youngest was Andromache, as pretty as Julia was plain, resembling
her brother, the redoubtable Captain Miltiades; a sweet girl, too,
if suggestive of the unvarying sweetness which is another word for
feebleness of character--fond of music, and showing some ability in
that direction, never taking part in the family quarrels which were
always raging at the table and elsewhere between the rest. But she had
the tastes of the woman of warm latitudes. In the house she was rarely
fit to be seen,--and she had a passion for powder, unguents and strong
perfumes. She was a tolerably efficient housekeeper, and generally
spent her mornings in the kitchen, superintending and helping Maria,
the maid of all work, who had enough in all conscience to do to keep
Captain Miltiades in clean shirts.

Captain Miltiades was not only the hero of his domestic circle, but
the hero of all Greece--or so he believed, which comes to the same
thing; the boldest soldier, the mightiest captain, the best horseman
and dancer, and, crown in romantic imaginations, the most impecunious
ornament of Athenian society. His fierce and military moustache and
bronzed cheek awed beholders, and his noble brow merging into a bald
crown gently fringed with short black hair, which made a thin line
above his black military coat and crimson velvet collar, seemed to hold
the concentrated wisdom of ages. But gallant and youthful was the
spirit of Captain Miltiades--amatory, too, as behoves a son of Mars.
“One may be bald and not old for that,” said his flashing dark-blue eye
whenever a maiden’s thoughtful glance rested on the discrowned region.
His French left much to be desired, and of other European languages
he knew nothing. But then scientific was his knowledge of the gay
cotillon, entrancing his movement in the waltz and mazurka; at least
the young ladies of Athens thought so. However, be it known to all who
care to learn noteworthy facts, Captain Miltiades was an authority on
these important subjects; a kind of dancing Master of Ceremonies at
the Palace, where he danced with royal partners and was amazingly in
demand. But, sad to relate, nobody dreamed of falling in love with him,
in spite of his military prowess and carpet-pirouetting. The ladies
regarded him as a kind of amiable harlequin, and his presence and
warm declarations only excited a smile on the lips of the weakest. Of
course he sighed and dangled after every _dot_, but sighed in vain, for
neither his fierce moustache nor his dark blue eyes have brought him
somebody’s one figure and countless noughts of francs.

It was twelve o’clock, and Captain Miltiades might be heard galloping
up the unpaved street, looking as if nothing short of a miracle could
bring horse or rider to stop before they reached the overhanging point
of Lycabettus. The miracle was accomplished without flinging the
gallant Captain headforemost into the dust or into the nearest flowing
stream, and the Captain’s military servant, Theodore, emerged from
the side entrance to carry off the panting war-horse, and refresh
its foaming flanks with the stable brush, while the warrior, with
stern brow and dissatisfied lips under the nodding red plumes of his
cap--this modern Achilles always appeared in a white heat of suppressed
anger in the domestic circle--rapped at the glass door which Julia
opened.

“Where is Maria?” asked Captain Miltiades.

“In the kitchen, of course, cooking the breakfast.”

“Maria! Maria!”

“Yes, sir,” cried the unfortunate servant, rushing from the steaming
_pilaf_ she was preparing, and showing a spacious bosom hardly
restrained within the compass of the strained and long since colourless
cloth that untidily covered it, and a ragged skirt, and fuzzy black
hair that she found as much difficulty in keeping out of the soup as
out of her own coal-black eyes--only far greater effort was made to
accomplish the latter feat.

“Maria, the balls are commencing, and I shall be going out regularly;
you must have two clean shirts for me every day. Do you hear?”

“And how on earth do you think, Captain, I am to get through my work?
Two shirts a day indeed! And the same for Mr. Themistocles, I suppose.
Four bedrooms to see to, cooking, washing for five persons: and one
poor girl to do it all for twenty-five francs a month. You may look for
another servant.”

“Get away, or I’ll wring your ear, Maria. You have Theodore to help you
in the kitchen, and you know that both my mother and Andromache help
you in the housework.”

“Wonderful, indeed! It only wants every one in the house to sit down
and do nothing, and the young ladies to ask me to starch them two white
petticoats apiece every day. Ah, animals, pigs, the whole of you,” she
added as she retired to the kitchen, and the gallant Captain to his
chamber.

Another masculine entrance, and this time the thin piping voice of
little Themistocles was heard, calling on the unhappy maid of all work.

“What does this fool want now?” roared the infuriated Maria, appearing
in the corridor with a large spoon which she brandished menacingly.

“I am going out this evening, Maria, and I want a second clean shirt,”
said Themistocles, thrusting his head out of his room.

“A second clean shirt! Oh, of course. What else? Don’t you think, sir,
you might find something more for me to do? I have so very little to do
that it would really be a kindness to keep an idle girl in work. Clean
shirts for Miltiades, clean shirts for Themistocles. ’Pon my word, it
is poor Maria herself who wants clean shirts--and she has not even time
to wash her face!”

“Really, it is absurd the trouble you men give in a house,” cried Julia
over her embroidery in the hall. “You seem to think there are no limits
to what a servant is to be asked to do.”

“Hold your tongue, Julia, and speak more respectfully of your
brothers,” retorted little Themistocles.

“What do you mean by quarrelling with your sister, you
whipper-snapper?” cried Miltiades, combing his moustache, as he came
out of his room to join in the fray. “Another impertinent word to
Julia, and it would not take much to make me kick you out into the
street.”

One word from the head of the house, as Captain Miltiades was called,
full twenty years his senior, was enough to silence Themistocles, who
retired into his room, and proceeded to make a careful study of the
libretto of “La Princesse des Canaries.”

The third tap that morning at the glass door of the street, announcing
the return of Andromache and her mother, was the cheerful herald of
breakfast. Everybody was seated at table, wearing a more or less
bellicose air, while Theodore, looking as correct and rigid as an
ill-fitting military undress would permit, served out the _pilaf_ when
Andromache and Kyria Karapolos entered the dining-room.

Andromache took her seat in silence beside Julia, and slowly unfolded
her napkin with an absent air, and her mother at the head of the table
began to puff and pant and violently fan herself.

“Pooh! pooh! pooh! what a woman! I thought she would eat poor
Andromache.”

“The music-woman,” remarked Captain Miltiades, indistinctly, through a
mouthful of _pilaf_.

“A savage, Miltiades. She has a servant just like herself, who received
us as if we were beggars, and told us to go upstairs and look for the
Natzelhuber ourselves. And when we went up, there was a nice-looking
young gentleman with her, a foreigner, fair, I should say an Englishman
or a Russian--what country do you think he comes from, Andromache?”

“Who, mamma?” asked Andromache, coming down from the clouds.

“That fair young man we saw at Natzelhuber’s.”

“I don’t know, I did not pay much attention to him,” Andromache
replied; and turned her eyes to the dish of roast meat Theodore was
placing on the table.

“Well, this young man, as I said, was with her, and when we entered the
room, I assure you she all but ordered us out again.”

“And why did you not go away?” demanded the Captain, hotly. “You are
always getting yourself insulted for want of proper spirit.”

“You are just like your father, ever ready to fly into a rage for
nothing,” protested Kyria Karapolos, sulkily. “If one followed your
advice, there would be nothing but quarrelling in the world. By acting
civilly I have been able to beat down the Natzelhuber’s terms very much
below my expectations. When I asked her what she charged a lesson, I
nearly fainted at her answer. Thirty francs! However, when I expressed
our position, and how absolutely impossible it would be for us to
pay more than ten, she consented to receive Andromache as a pupil on
those terms. But whenever I spoke she snubbed me in the most violent
manner,--called me an old fool.”

“Perhaps you gave her cause,” sneered Themistocles, who felt bitter
towards his mother, regarding her as his natural enemy since she
had warned the mother of the young lady in the next street of his
pennilessness, a warning which served to close the doors of that
paradise forever to him.

“How dare you, sir, speak in such a way to your mother?” thundered the
irate Captain, always ready to pounce on the small bank-clerk, whom he
despised very cordially. “I told you to-day that it would not take much
to make me kick you into the street. Another offensive word, and see!”

This ebullition quenched all further family expansion round the
breakfast-table. The girls hurried through the meal in silence, keeping
their eyes resolutely fixed on their plate. One man glowered, and the
other sulked in offended dignity, rising hurriedly the instant Theodore
appeared with two small cups of Turkish coffee for Kyria Karapolos
and the Captain. In another instant the street door was heard to bang
behind Themistocles, who, with his slim cane, his yellow gloves, and
minute waist, had gone down to indulge in a clerkly saunter as far as
Constitution Place, and unbosom his harassed and manly soul to two
other minute confidants previous to turning into the Corinthian Bank.

After his coffee, the Captain went back to his barracks beyond the
Palace, and Andromache sat down to practice her scales on a cracked
piano in the little salon, with a view of the rugged steepness of
Lycabettus and the trellised gardens of the French School through
the long window. It was a pretty little room, with some excellent
specimens of Greek art and Byzantine embroidery, foolish Byzantine
saints, in gilt frames, with an artificial vacuity of gaze, the
artistic achievements of the rival Athenian photographers, Romaïdes and
Moraïtes, views of the Parthenon and the Temple of Jupiter, a bomb that
had exploded at the very feet of Captain Miltiades in the late outbreak
at Larissa, upon which memorable occasion he had gallantly mangled the
bodies of five thousand Turks and scattered their armies in shame. This
valuable piece of historic information I insert for the special benefit
of those who may presume to question the direct succession of this
mighty Captain from the much admired warriors of Homer. In olden days
Captain Miltiades’ glory would have quite outshone that of his puny
namesake; as a complete hero, upon his own description, he would have
occupied the niche of fame with Hercules and Theseus.

Necessarily there was the sofa, the Greek seat of honour, upon which
all distinguished visitors are at once installed, this law, like that
of the Medes and Persians, knowing no change. Also sundry tables
decorated with albums and the school prizes of the young ladies, the
bank-clerk, and the Captain of the Artillery. All the chairs were
covered with white dimity, and the floor was polished with bees’ wax,
which gave the room an aspect of chill neatness.

Andromache was interrupted in a conscientious study of scales by the
entrance of her mother and Julia, and the former’s irrelevant question:

“Don’t you think that young man was English, Andromache?”

“I don’t know, mother, possibly,” was Andromache’s impatient answer,
for, though it grieves me to unveil the secret workings of a maiden’s
mind, I must perforce confess that the student was thinking just then
of Rudolph’s kind and sympathetic glance.

“Can’t you stop that horrible noise and describe him?” said Julia. “You
know I always want to hear about foreigners.”

“He was fair and tall and handsome, with very kind blue eyes, light,
not dark like those of Miltiades--there, that’s all I can say about
him,” said Andromache, rising, and standing at the window to stare
across at the gardens of the French School.




CHAPTER V.

HOW GUSTAV REINEKE MISSED MADAME JAROVISKY’S BALL.


The illustrious Dr. Galenides had just seated himself at his desk to
write a note to his no less illustrious colleague, Dr. Melanos, while
his hat and gloves on the study table and his carriage outside were
testimony of a contemplated professional drive. The study door was
suddenly opened with what Dr. Galenides regarded as undue familiarity,
and looking up sharply, prepared to administer the deserved rebuke, the
learned physician recognised in the intruder an old friend and brother
in profession. The new-comer, a rough, provincial-looking Hercules, was
Dr. Selaka of Tenos, a member of his Majesty’s parliament, called for
some unaccountable reason, “The King of Tenos.” Instead of a rebuke,
Dr. Galenides administered an effusive embrace, and clasped this
insular majesty to his capacious bosom.

“What a splendid surprise, my dear Constantine!” he cried, when he had
kissed both Selaka’s bronzed cheeks. “When did you come to Athens?”

“Last night. I have come to oppose two new measures of the Minister.
Have you read his speech on the Budget?”

“Of course. I thought it displayed great moderation and sagacity.
There’s a statesman if you will, Constantine.”

“May the devil sit upon his moustache for an English humbug! England
here, England there! Ouf! But wait until he has me to tackle him.”

“You’ll lead him a dance, I’ve no doubt,” laughed Galenides. “But how
are all the family?”

“Very well. My niece Inarime is growing more beautiful every day. All
the islanders are in love with her. A queer old dog is Pericles. He has
brought that girl up in the maddest fashion. Nothing but ancient Greek
and that sort of thing, and he has made up his mind she will marry a
foreign archæologist, or die an old maid.”

“Yes, I always thought him unpractical and foolish, but I tremendously
respect his learning. Why doesn’t he bring the girl to Athens, if he
won’t marry her to a Teniote?”

“Well, he talks vaguely of some such intention. You are going out, I
see.”

“Yes, and that reminds me, Selaka. I was just writing a line to
Melanos, but you’ll do just as well. There is a foreigner sick in the
Hôtel de la Grande Bretagne who has sent for me. Could you go round and
look at him? I haven’t a spare moment to-day. If I am absolutely wanted
for a consultation, of course, I’ll endeavour to attend.”

Selaka consented with alacrity, and the friends parted with cordiality
at the door, one to seat himself in a comfortable carriage, and be
rolled swiftly to the Queen’s Hospital in the new quarter of Athens,
the Teniote to walk to the Hôtel de la Grande Bretagne, a little
above Constitution Square, overlooking the orange trees and fountains
in front of the Royal Palace. He was delighted with the prospect of
meeting a distinguished foreigner, distinction proclaimed in the choice
of hotel, and he would profit by the occasion to discuss the politics
of Bismarck with this M. Reineke.

The waiters favoured him with that insolent reception usually bestowed
by waiters of distinguished hotels upon foot and provincial-looking
arrivals. But the mention of the illustrious Dr. Galenides cleared
the haughty brow of Demosthenes; and when Selaka furthermore stated
that that great personage had sent him to feel the pulse of the sick
foreigner, Demosthenes condescended to call to Socrates, a lesser
luminary among the hotel officials, and signified to his satellite that
Dr. Selaka might be conducted to M. Reineke’s chamber.

Selaka found his patient, a young man of about twenty-eight, lying on
a sofa, wrapped in a silk dressing-gown, with an elegant travelling
rug thrown across his feet. Selaka’s keen glance rested in amazement
on a delicate Eastern head, long grave eyes of the unfathomable and
colourless shade of water flowing over dark tones, with a very noble
and intense look in them, a high smooth brow that strengthened this
expression of nobility, and finely-cut lips seen through the waves of
dark beard and moustache as benign as a sage’s. It was a thoughtful,
spiritual face, serene in its strength, unimpassioned in its
kindliness--the face of a student and a gentleman.

“I should never take you to be a German, M. Reineke,” said Selaka,
after their first greeting, seating himself beside the sofa, and
taking the sick man’s supple fingers into his.

“No one does,” said Reineke, in such pure French as to put to shame
Selaka’s grotesque accent. His voice was musical and low, with a
softness of tone in harmony with his peculiar beauty, and fever gave it
a ring of weariness.

“Are you going to order me quinine, doctor?”

“Why, naturally. How else would you break a fever?”

“But I cannot take it, doctor. It disagrees with me.”

“That is a pity. Four doses taken in four hours cut the worst fever,
and set a man on his feet in a day.”

“Some constitutions can bear it, I suppose. But I nearly died after
quinine treatment in Egypt. My head has not ceased going round ever
since.”

“Your temperature is over a hundred, and you refuse to take quinine!
Then there is nothing for you but to linger on in this state. Low diet
and repose--that is all I can prescribe.”

Left alone, the sick man closed his eyes wearily and turned to sleep,
out of which he was shaken by a knock at the door, and the head of an
Englishman thrust itself inside.

“Can I come in, Mr. Reineke?”

“Pray do, Mr. Warren,” said Reineke, smiling agreeably. “It is kind
of you to find time to visit a sick wretch amid all your _fêtes_ and
sight-seeing.”

“Oh, that is a real pleasure. Only I am so sorry to see you cut up like
this and losing all the fun. It was awfully jolly at the Von Hohenfels’
last week. There was an outrageous lioness there. For the life of me I
could not catch her name. The governor wants to secure her for London.
By Jove! what a tartar! She nearly ate the French viscount up in a
bite.”

“Yes, I heard about it, but she is a very distinguished artist, I
believe. You’ve been to Sunium since?”

“Came back to-day for the Jaroviskys’ ball. What a jolly people these
Greeks are! The entire country seems at our disposal. Special trains,
special boats and guides. Oh, we had an awfully good time, I tell you:
inspected the Laurion mines, and looked awfully wise about them and
everything else. But surely you’ll be able to go to the Jaroviskys’
to-morrow? What did the doctor say?”

“Nothing wise--a doctor never does.”

“Look here, old fellow, we can’t leave you here while we are dancing
and flirting with the pretty Athenians.”

“If the pretty Athenians guessed my nationality, they would not be very
eager to have me dance and flirt with them.”

“Then the governor was right? You are not a German?”

“No, I am a Turk. I have lived a good deal in Germany, so I adopted a
Teuton name upon coming to Greece to avoid disagreeable associations
for the natives. It is very comfortable. I was bored in Paris by the
way people stared at me, and whispered openly about me when they heard
my Turkish name, so I mean not to resume it. If I played the piano, the
ladies fell into ecstatic wonder.”

“Well, we are accustomed to the old-fashioned Turk, cross-legged, on
a pile of cushions, in flowing garb and turban, smoking a narghile,
with a lovely Fatima or two by his side, and exclaiming frequently in
sepulchral tones, ‘Allah be praised!’ It will doubtless take us some
time to grow used to the newer picture presented by you.”

“Is it not aggravating to be kept here in a darkened room, while near
me are ruined porticoes and columns, where once my people built their
Moslem forts and turrets, and the voice of the muezzin broke the
lone silence after the Pagan days? There is not even a glimpse from
my window of that mass of broken pillars that stood out so plainly
against the sky when we entered the Piraeus. I feel like a child
waiting for the play, when suddenly comes a hitch which keeps the
curtain down. I want to walk with the poets and philosophers, read
Plato in the groves of the Academe, stand with Œdipus and Antigone at
Colonneus, and look towards the towers and temples of Athens, walk
with Pericles and Phidias through the marbles of the Acropolis, with
none but the voices of glorious spirits to break the silence of the
universe,--those spirits who have burned into history the clear gold of
their unapproachable intellects, seeing with eyes that have served for
centuries, feeling with hearts that have beaten for all time, speaking
with lips upon which the noblest words are everlastingly carven.”

“Gad, I see you are an enthusiast like our friend, Miss Winters, who
goes into fits when we inform her of some fresh rascality on the part
of the modern Greeks,” cried young Warren, marvelling to hear a Turk
talk in this fashion.

“She is a charming old lady, and you youngsters downstairs should not
quiz her as you do. She engaged, if I were better, to carry me with
her on Sunday to read Paul’s sermon to the men of Athens on the hill
of Mars aloud. I have since been informed that it is customary for
the Athenians to take their Sunday airing along the foot of the hill
of Mars. Fancy the sensation we should have created, standing in a
respectful attitude beside the little American lady, piously reading
aloud the words of St. Paul.”

Reineke laughed softly, while young Warren exploded in a burst of loud
merriment.

“Do you know, when she discovered that the ruffian of a head-waiter
is called Demosthenes, she looked so horribly like embracing him,
that, seriously alarmed, I exclaimed, ‘Madam, I beseech you, pause in
your rash career.’ I don’t think she quite realised the extent of my
service, for she very nearly quarrelled with me when I mentioned that
Demosthenes is in the habit of defrauding our poor Jehus of at least
half their profits.”

“Amiable enthusiast! But don’t class me with her. I have no illusions
about the modern Greeks. I have seen in the East how they take
advantage of our good-nature and our dislike to trade. I know them to
cheat and bargain and deceive, and grow fat upon the kindness of those
who trust them. But what have they in common with the ancients? They
have not the intellect, the unerring taste, the exquisite restraint of
language and bearing, the sunny gravity of temperament, the simplicity
and keen love of the beautiful. If they were really the descendants of
the old race, there would be some signs whereby we should recognise
their glorious heritage.”

“I don’t know. Perhaps, if we knew the opinion held by the Persians and
the barbarians of the old Hellenes--it would be probably very different
from their own.”

“We don’t need any opinion with the works they have left. Such
eloquence as that is incontrovertible, and in the face of it, their
representatives to-day are as much out of place here as were the
Franks, the Italians and the Turks. It was a desecration to have built
on these immortal shores a nation sprung from slavery and the refuse
of the Middle Ages--without tradition or any right to believe in its
own destiny. What do they care for? Money, trade! They have no real
reverence for knowledge, except that it helps in the acquirement of
wealth and power. You will find no Greek ready to consecrate his days,
aye, and his nights, to the disinterested dispersion of the clouds
of ignorance by as much as a rushlight of knowledge, capable of the
unglorified, untrumpeted, unrecognised patience and labour of the
scholar. Nor would he willingly choose poverty and obscurity that he
might live the life of the spirit.”

“Well, I am afraid there are not many of us who would,” said Warren,
good-naturedly. “And these people have their virtues. They are sober
and moral.”

“They are indeed, and they are not cruel to their children or their
wives, but they make up for the omission by horrible cruelty to
animals. They frequently amuse themselves by tying a barrel of
petroleum to the tails of a couple of dogs, and firing it, for the
delicate pleasure of gloating over the death agonies of the poor
brutes.”

“Good heavens! What awful savages! But do you know, Mr. Reineke, it
would be a just punishment for your ill opinion of them if you fell in
love with a Greek. ’Pon my word, there are some very pretty girls here.”

“It is possible. But mere beauty has no attraction for me. I have
seen lovely women in the East, indolent, unthinking beings, whom I
couldn’t respect. I would sooner have a wicked woman who had elements
of greatness in her than a virtuous one who had none. Aspasia I should
have adored. It is because the women we mostly meet are so insipid that
I have never thought to fill my life with the consuming excitement of
love. I should feel ashamed and grieved to place my manhood under the
feet of a mere household pet, or a drawing-room ornament, a fluttering,
flounced marionette with the soul in her eyes gone astray, her lips
twisted out of the lovely sensibility of womanhood by senseless chatter
and laughter far sadder than tears. To see so many exquisite creatures
meant to be worshipped by us, and only ridiculed, meant to guide and
ennoble us, and preferring degradation; the purity of maidenly eyes
lost in the vilest audacity of gaze, and the high post of spiritual
guardians of the world bartered for unworthy conquests.”

“How cold-blooded to be able to furnish all these excellent reasons
for not making a fool of yourself! Well, may we hope to see you at the
Jaroviskys’?”

“I am afraid not. But pray, come and tell me how you have enjoyed
yourself when you have a moment to spare.”

“And shall I give your love to Miss Winters?”

“Hardly that, but present her with my most distinguished compliments,
if that is good English.”

Dr. Selaka that evening found Reineke more feverish, and although he
was not anxious to lose sight of his patient, he seriously advised a
sea voyage as the only adequate substitution for quinine.

He was greatly interested in this handsome stranger with the dark
beard and romantic intensity of gaze, and speculated wildly on his
nationality and circumstances as he walked from the hotel. He thought
he might be a Spaniard, until, remembering the late Spanish Minister,
who could not pay his passage back to Spain, and only got as far as
Corfu by selling all the clothes and furniture he had never paid for,
he decided that the Spaniards were a miserable race. The Italians,
he thought, were not much better, and Reineke as little resembled a
Frenchman as he did a German.

“You might go to Poros,” he said to Gustav. “It is a pretty place, and
the trip would do you good.”

“Why not one of the Ægean Islands?” suggested Gustav.

“Certainly. There is Tenos. I live there myself, and I have a brother
whom you could stay with for a day or two.”

Selaka coloured with a sudden astonishing thought. This stranger was
rich, perhaps unmarried. He might fall in love with Inarime. Now he was
bent on urging the trip to Tenos, before undreamed of. “I’ll telegraph
to my brother, and you can travel in the _Sphacteria_. The captain is
my godson.”

“You are very kind, doctor, and I am ashamed to accept such favours
from you,” said Reineke, truthfully, in surprised assent.

“Oh, it is a pleasure. We Greeks love to see strangers.”

“Then I will go to-morrow. I want to get well as soon as possible, for
I have much to do here,” said Reineke.




CHAPTER VI.

A FIGHT IN THE CAMP OF HELLAS.


Crossing Constitution Square the king of Tenos was hilariously
accosted by one of his satellites, a member of the Opposition and
a lawyer of parchment exterior, whose career had been varied as it
was unremunerative. Starting in life as domestic servant, he had
found leisure to attend the University, and buy legal books with his
perquisites. His stern profession by no means impeded the unsuccessful
editorship of several newspapers--comic, political and satirical, each
of which enjoyed a kind of ephemeral reputation and lasted about six
months, leaving the venturous editor with a lighter pocket, and now he
was Selaka’s colleague in obstruction.

“This is the best answer to my telegram, Constantine,” said Stavros.
“What a day we’ll have of it in the Boulé[A]--eh?”

“Oh, ay, the Budget Speech. Leave it to me, Stavros. We’ll egg them on
to an explosion. Keep to the caricatures. Collars and cuffs Minister!
Ouf! Have you been pumping our friends about the Mayoralty?”

“Trust me. Our side is for you to a man. The party for Oïdas is
strong, I admit, and wealth is in his favour, but I think we shall be
able to pull you through.”

“If only! Listen Stavros, if I get in as Mayor, I’ll make you a present
of a thousand francs, and I’ll secure your son the first vacant place
in the University. I know your power,” he added, slyly.

The man of documents swelled with a sense of his own importance. Of
that he had no doubt. The ministry depended on the state of his temper,
which was uncertain, and the Lord be praised, what is a man if he has
not his influence at the beck and call of his friends?

“Oïdas has spent a lot of money on the town,” he hinted.

“That is so. He is enormously rich, and takes care to advertise that
fact,” Dr. Selaka replied.

“Well, we must spend money too,--in some cases we can only seem to
spend it, and it will come to the same thing, my friend. But I’m
hopeful, Constantine. You started on good lines. The swiftest path to
celebrity is opposition, and you have never done anything else but
oppose. It is a fine career, man, and gives you a decided superiority
over the humble and compliant. The man who opposes need never trouble
himself for reasons. His vote on the introduction of a measure is
sufficient to insure him importance.”

“If obstruction be a merit, I have been obstructing these ten years,
and the Mayoralty of Athens seems rather a modest claim upon such a
display of superiority,” said Dr. Selaka, quite seriously.

The lawyer’s humour was profoundly tickled. The follies of the weak and
foolish were a source of infinite amusement to him. It was he who had
urged the Teniote to the coming ambitious contest, not that he in the
least contemplated success, but he understood that with a wiser man to
lead, his part would be a much less exciting one.

“We are the _Parnellistoi_ of Greece, Constantine,” he said, with an
air of ponderous assertion. “We may be beaten, but our hour of triumph
is only retarded.”

He conscientiously consulted his watch, and then added, as an
afterthought:

“You will need a larger house, Constantine.”

“I have thought of that, and have been inquiring about the expenses of
building. I have a spot in view near the new Hospital. It will be a
heavy item added to my election expenses, but my brother Pericles will
come to my assistance, I make no doubt.”

“Why does he not come here himself, and establish his family? The man
is insane to bury himself in Tenos.”

“With as handsome a daughter as ever the eyes of man fell upon,”
interrupted the doctor, angrily.

“My faith! you must bring him to Athens. A handsome niece well dowered
will be a feather in your cap. Play her off against Oïdas, and you’ll
have the men on your side.”

“Pouf! Use a woman in politics! But if Pericles will let me look out
for a son-in-law for him, something might be done in that way.”

“Why not? There are Mingros and Palle, both rich men. With either of
them for a nephew you might aspire to be prime minister.”

“You don’t know Pericles. He is a confounded idiot. Nothing but
learning will go down with him. Death before dishonour. Modern Athens
represents dishonour to him, because it presumes to prefer other things
to the very respectable ancients. If he came to Athens, like Jarovisky,
he would expect Inarime to fix her eyes permanently on the Acropolis,
with intervals for recognition of the Theseium and minor points
of antiquity. I foresee her end. He’ll marry her to some wretched
twopenny-halfpenny archæologist, who will barely be able to pay the
rent of a flat in some shabby street, and the wages of a maid of all
work.”

“We must avert her doom, Constantine. Have her up to town, and bring
her some night to the theatre when the King is expected to attend. The
young men will stare at her from the stalls, and I’ll have an elegant
verse upon her in the ‘New Aristophanes.’”

This proposition brought them to the Boulé in Stadion Street. The Prime
Minister’s carriage was outside, and along the railing a row of loafers
reclined, discussing each member as he passed in, and the space inside
the gates was strewn with soldiers and civilians of every grade. The
sharp swarthy faces lit up with eager recognition when Dr. Selaka and
Stavros entered the gate, and familiar and jocose greetings were flung
casually at them from the crowd.

“Glad to see you have a new coat, Constantine,” one urchin roared after
Selaka, and sent his admirers into fits of laughter.

With the dignity of demeanour it behoved a mayor-elect to assume,
Selaka coldly ignored the jibes and jokes of the loafers, touched his
hat to his acquaintances and ascended the steps of the Chamber with
weighty prophecy of obstruction upon his brow. The interior of the
Chamber was a sight for the gods. The floor behind the president was
held by corner-boys, soldiers, peasants and beggars in common with the
representatives of King George’s Parliament. Deputies in fustanella and
embroidered jacket showed pictorially against the less imposing apparel
of civilization, and addressed the president at their ease, frequently
not condescending to stand, but lounged back in their seats, and merely
arrested his attention with an authoritative hand. The proceedings
could be watched upstairs from a gallery of boxes, and a very amusing
and lively half-hour might thus be spent. The stage below was filled
with grown-up children, who fought and wrangled, exchanged amenities
and breathless personalities, and foolishly imagined they were ruling
the country. It is impossible to conjecture what a parliament of women
would be like, but we can safely predict that it could not well surpass
the average parliament of men in the futile chatter, squabbling and
display of ill-temper.

Dr. Selaka took his seat in a leisurely manner, under the minister’s
eye, on the front seat, and listened, with a protruded underlip and
the look of sagacity on the alert. Stavros sat back, extending his
arms behind the backs of his neighbors, and wore an expression of
ostentatious amusement befitting the editor of a satirical newspaper.

The unlucky minister hazarded a loose statement, which gave Dr. Selaka
his opportunity. He was on his legs, with two spots of excited red
staining his sallow cheeks under the eyes, and opened a vehement fire
of epithet and expostulation. The minister retorted, and Stavros,
seated where he was, just held out a cool protesting finger, and cried:
“You lie.”

The English Cabinet Minister was sitting upstairs in the box set apart
for the diplomatic corps, and on this statement being translated to
him, he leant forward and focussed the lawyer with his impertinent
eyeglass. This was a species of parliamentary frankness with which he
was not familiar, used as he was to having his veracity challenged in a
variety of forms. As a novelty it was worth observing--especially the
attitude of the minister thus given “the lie direct.”

The president tapped the table and called for order, which was
naturally the signal for boisterous disorder. The premier sat down
amidst a torrent of words, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs rose to
fight his battle as chief lieutenant. The storm raged to the pitch of
universal howls, and when at last there was a momentary lull in the
atmosphere, exasperated by the abuse of which he had been the free
recipient, Stavros jumped up, and flashing threateningly upon the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, roared out:--

“It well becomes you to abuse me. You live in a fine house now, and
keep your carriage, but for all that, I can remember the time when you
were glad to wear my old clothes.”

Dead silence greeted this retort, and a grim smile relaxed the grave
faces of the members. No personality is too gross to tickle this most
democratic race, and anything that levels the proud man delights them.
The Right Honourable Samuel Warren, M. P., upstairs, decided to take
the light of his illustrious presence from such a shocking scene,
wavered, and remembering mythology, bethought himself of the laughter
of the gods. He was abroad in the pursuit of knowledge, and this was
certainly experience.

Stavros was frantically adjured to withdraw and apologise, and as
frantically refused to do any such thing. His colleague and imagined
leader stood up in his defence and the obstructionist became riotous
to the verge of hysterics, until the Right Honourable Samuel Warren,
looking down upon the spectacle from a safe distance, really believed
he had been dropped into Bedlam instead of Parliament. Uproar succeeded
angry protest in deafening succession; with the rapidity of thought
mere speech was rejected as inadequate to the occasion. The generals,
almost as numerous as soldiers, jumped upon their seats and brandished
their hats terrifically. The hapless president made his escape, leaving
the chair to one of the vice-presidents, and Constantine Selaka with an
agile bound cleared the space intervening between the members’ seats
and the tribune, installed himself therein, and shouted his intention
of keeping the Chamber sitting until the demands of his party were
complied with.

“And would Kyrios Selaka be good enough to state categorically the
demands of his party?” the Prime Minister asked, standing to go,
holding his hat in his hand, with an officially negative look.

This was a rash invitation. Selaka burst into an interminable, involved
and idiotic speech, which Stavros followed from his seat with one much
more involved and personal, and much less idiotic.

Evening descended, the dinner-hour passed, and still the unfortunate
vice-president held the chair, and exercised his authority by a
furious and inappropriate ringing of the bell, and calls for attention.
Exhausted and famished deputies dropped out of representative life
in search of animal food; others clamoured for cessation of the
strife, and pathetically referred to the solace of the domestic
circle. But Stavros and Selaka were adamant. The clamours of nature
were unheeded by them; when one shouted and orated, the other sought
comfort in cigarette and coffee. Night came, and found Selaka still
in the tribune, gloomy, ravenous, and resolute. Meanwhile Stavros had
refreshed himself with a snatch of food outside. He returned to the
charge while his leader shot into the corridors, and collared excited
and admiring attendants in the pursuit of food.

“We are as good as the Parnellistoi over in London,” Selaka remarked,
and rubbed his hands with joy, as he and his friend walked home at the
end of the protracted sitting.

“That is so, Constantine,” said Stavros, who dearly loved a row of any
sort, and who since he could not fight the European powers in person,
solaced himself by fighting a temporising president and a tame party.
“You’ll be mayor to a certainty.”

“Mayor indeed!” ejaculated Constantine, keenly measuring his own sudden
charge for notoriety. “It’s minister at least I ought to be. I have
tackled them, Stavros, eh?”

His friend thought so, and went home to express his opinion in three
columns of laudatory prose and twelve satirical verses describing the
great Homeric fray.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] The Greeks call their modern Parliament by the classical name of
Boulé.




CHAPTER VII.

PHOTINI NATZELHUBER.


Many years ago a German mechanic drifted, in the spirit of adventure,
eastwards, and finding the conditions of life offered him in Athens
sufficiently attractive for a man desirous of earning his bread in the
easiest manner possible, and not contemptuously inclined towards the
midday siesta, the excellent Teuton settled down in the city we may
presume to be no longer under the special patronage of Wisdom. Not that
Jacob Natzelhuber regretted that Athens’ reign was over. The mechanic
was ignominiously indifferent to all great questions, and so long as
his employers continued to pay him his weekly wages, conscientiously
earned and conscientiously saved, the extravagances of the unfortunate
King Otho and the virtues of Queen Amelia troubled him as little as did
the glorious ruins on the Acropolis. He never went near the Acropolis.
When his glance rested on the mass of broken pillars and temples that
dominate every view of the town, he doubtless confused them with the
eccentric shapes of the adjoining hills, and if asked his opinion
of that point of classic memories, would tranquilly remove his pipe
from his lips and remark that the other hill, his own special friend,
Lycabettus, was higher. A good-humored, egoistic, phlegmatic workman,
for the rest; fond of leisurely meditation on nothing, fond of smoking
in his shirt-sleeves with the help of an occasional glass of mastia or
brandy, and convinced that the world goes very well now as it did in
olden days, and that the Greek is a composite of barbarian and child.

In a wife one naturally chooses what is most convenient, if one cannot
obtain what is most suitable. Jacob chanced upon an enormous indolent
maiden, dowered as Greek maids usually are, with a father whose house
property was prophetic of better things to come. The girl was not
handsome--nor as cleanly or learned in household matters as a German
_frau_; but some half dozen years in the makeshift of Oriental domestic
life had served to deaden Jacob’s fastidious sensibilities in this
department, and with the prospect of a little money and a couple of
houses in the neighbourhood of Lycabettus by and by, on the death of a
respectable father-in-law, he was so far demoralised as to face this
unsavory future with tolerable tranquillity. They married.

The slow and philosophic Teuton found his Athenian wife and their one
servant--a small barefooted child, in perpetual terror of her mistress,
whose reprimands generally came upon her in the shape of tin utensils,
water-jugs or stiff tugs of hair and ear--rather more noisy than a
simple woman and child should be, to his thinking. But he preferred
a quiet smoke on the balcony to interference in the kitchen, whence
the sounds of hysterical cries, very bad language indeed, and sundry
breaking articles reached him.

The lady, when not in a rage, a rare enough occurrence, was an amiable
woman so long as her innocent habits were not interfered with. Jacob
was indisposed to interfere with any one--even with his own wife.
So Kyria Photini peacefully smoked her three or four cigarettes,
and drank her small glass of cognac of an evening, chattered in
high Athenian tones with her neighbours, arrayed in a more or less
soiled white morning jacket, and any kind of a skirt, with black hair
all dishevelled, and sallow cheeks not indicative of an immoderate
preference for cold water and soap. The little maid trembled and broke
plates, went about with bare feet, short skirts and unkempt woolly
hair, meeting her mistress’s vituperations with a wooden animal look,
and lifting a protective arm to catch the threatened blow or object.
Jacob was not happy, but he was philosopher enough to know that few
people ever are, and that the highest wisdom consists in knowing how
to make the best of even the worst. He was fond of his wife in his
heavy German fashion, removed his pipe, and said, “come, come,” when
the heat unstrung her nerves and sent her from her normal condition,
bordering on hysterics, into positive madness; consoled himself by
remembering that distinguished men in all ages have agreed that woman
is incomprehensible, and hoped for some acceptable amelioration with
the birth of the expected baby.

The baby came, a small dark girl, and the baby’s mother went to heaven,
Jacob naturally supposed, and shed the customary tears of regret,
though it can hardly have been happiness or comfort that he regretted.
He engaged an Athenian woman to look after the child, and returned to
his daily work and bachelor habits, deterred by recent experiences from
making any other venture in the search of domestic bliss. The child
was called Photini, and it was greatly to be hoped that a little of the
paternal temperament would go to correct the vices of the maternal, but
there are relative stages in the path of moral development, and a lazy,
hysterical, soulless woman is not the worst thing in feminine nature.

Photini grew up pretty much as the animals do, without any but merely
natural obligations placed upon her. She ran about like a little street
arab, learned neither reading, nor writing, nor catechism, nor sewing;
swore like a small trooper, was more than a match for the barefooted,
unkempt-headed girl, who soon learned to tremble before her as she had
formerly trembled before her mother; was even too much for her quiet
father, who began to be afraid of her furious explosions, and was too
indifferent to the duties of paternity to trouble himself seriously
about her education. Yet a pretty and striking child she was, with
large topaz eyes, that in their audacity and frankness were sufficient
in themselves to arrest attention, if there were no mossy black curls
making an engaging network above and around the fine boyish brow;
with the absurdest and sauciest nose and a wide, pale mouth that had
a way of twisting itself into every imaginable grimace without losing
a certain disreputable charm of curve and expression. A face full
of precocious evil, but withal exquisitely candid--what the French
would call a _ragged_ face, warning you and yet claiming a sort of
indefinable admiration from its absolute courage and truthfulness. She
took to the streets as kindly as if she had been born in them, rolling
about in mud and dust in the full enjoyment of unfettered childhood,
dealing blows, expletives, kisses and ugly names with generous
indifference. With every one she quarrelled, not as children do, but as
savages quarrel, fiercely and murderously; but even in this innocent
age she displayed a frank preference for the male sex. Girls filled
her with unlimited contempt, and she was never really happy unless
surrounded by a group of noisy, quarrelling boys. Then her pretty teeth
would gleam in wild laughter, and she would talk more nonsense in five
minutes than any six ordinary girls in an hour.

The father saw the lamentable condition of his child, but being a
philosopher and caring only for abstract meditations and his ease, he
preferred that she should be kept out of his sight as much as possible,
than that he should be asked to mend matters. What can a man be
expected to do with a motherless baby girl? Not teach it the alphabet,
surely? Nor walk it about the barren slopes of Lycabettus of a Sunday,
nor initiate it into the mysteries of the Catechism? Clearly there was
nothing else for a hard-working and good-tempered German to do but let
nature work her will on such unpromising and unmanageable material,
and continued to smoke his pipe and drink his mastic at his favourite
coffee-house fronting Lycabettus. If nature failed, it was far from
likely that he should succeed, and it was too much to expect him to
devote his rare leisure hours to his unruly child. The neighbours did
not, however, regard it in this light; but then neighbours never are
disposed to regard the concerns of others from a reasonable point of
view. So many improvements they could bring into the management of your
family matters which they fail to bring into their own. No, no; leave a
philosopher to find the easiest road of life and to discover a way out
of all domestic responsibilities. Socrates was an admirable example in
this high path, and if he could discourse in public on the immortality
of the soul and other subjects, while his much calumniated wife and
child wanted bread at home, a more modest individual like Jacob
Natzelhuber might certainly sip his mastic in the Greek sunshine, and
cherish a poor opinion of the policy of Metternich, while his little
daughter was running about the narrow Athenian streets.

But there was one saving and remarkable grace about Photini. Not only
did she display a nascent passion for music, but even as an infant
she had shown an amazing taste for thrumming imaginary tunes on every
object with which her fingers came in contact. When not fighting with a
dozen amiable little beggars, or rolling delightedly in mud and dust,
she was always to be seen playing this imaginary music of hers, and on
the few occasions when her father took her to hear the German band on
the Patissia Road, the sight of the King and Queen on horseback was
nothing to her in comparison with the joy of sound.

This growing passion was becoming too prominent and imperious to be
long overlooked; besides, Jacob had a German’s reverence for true
musical proclivities, so he purchased the cheapest piano to be had,
engaged the services of a Bavarian music master who had come to Athens
in the hope of making his fortune under his compatriot king, and
for so many hours in the day, at least, Photini was guaranteed from
mischief. Her progress was something more than astonishing, and caused
the Bavarian to give his spectacles an extra polish before announcing
gravely to Jacob that Liszt himself could not ask for a more promising
pupil. This naturally made Jacob very thoughtful, and sent his aimless
meditations into quite a new channel. It is a negative condition of
mind to feel that one has a poor opinion of Metternich, but to learn
that one has a genius in one’s daughter leads to disagreeably positive
reflections.

Now Jacob was a quiet man, we know, and the idea of an exceptional
child frightened him. It was not an enviable responsibility in his
estimation. Far from it, a distinctly painful one. An ordinary girl who
would have grown just a little better-looking than her mother, learned
to sew and housekeep in the usual way, and terminated an uneventful
girlhood by marriage into something better than mechanics, thanks to
his industry and economy--this was his ideal of a daughter’s career.
Evidently here Nature thought differently.

As soon, however, as he had given a conscientious attention to
Photini’s talent, greatly injured by the modest instrument on which she
played, he came to the conclusion that this was not a case in which
man can interfere, and that he was before a vocation claiming its
legitimate right of sovereignty and refusing to be shifted off into the
shallow byways of existence.

“I am of your opinion,” he said to the Bavarian master. “It is no
common talent, that of my girl, but for my part I would far rather she
did not know a major from a minor scale. It is not a woman’s business.
However, I can do nothing now. I leave the matter in your hands. I
am a poor man, but whatever you propose, as far as it is honourably
necessary, I will make an effort to meet your proposal,” he added,
with a slow, grave look.

“There is nothing for it but Germany, Natzelhuber,” said the Bavarian,
promptly. “I should fancy we might manage, with the help of your
father-in-law, a little influence I possess, and the girl’s own genius,
to get her three or four years’ study in Leipzig. Once that much
assured, she need only keep her head above water, and the waves will
surely carry her----”

The Bavarian flung out his hands in an attitude suggestive of infinity.

“Well, well, so long as they do not carry her into evil,” said Jacob,
shaking his head mournfully. “I am mistrustful of a public career for a
woman.”

“You cannot deny that it is better than marriage with a man of your own
class.”

“I am not so sure about that. But I am afraid Photini will turn out
one of those women who had best avoid marriage with any one. She does
not look likely to make any man happy, or herself either. A perverse,
passionate, uneducated girl, with more ugly names in her head than any
two ordinary street boys, and not a single good or amiable instinct in
her that I can see.”

Jacob, excellent man, quite forgot to take into consideration that he
himself was far from innocent of these disastrous results, and that his
paternal indifference had had far more to do with her ill condition
than any predisposition of the child’s.

“That is quite another matter and one that concerns me not at all,”
rejoined the Bavarian, indifferently. “Art, my dear sir, Art! Fraulein
Photini represents an abstract idea to me. The problem of her destiny
as a woman has no attraction for me. She may marry, or she may
not--she is not a pretty girl, but I have seen men make idiots of
themselves about uglier. It all depends on the spectacles you use. But
I am of opinion that a woman of genius has no business with marriage.
Goethe, you may remember, wisely calls it the grave of her genius.”

“Probably, but there is time enough to think of that.”

Photini’s grandfather, when consulted, was only too glad to contribute
towards the speculation of winging this hybrid fledgling from the
parent nest. The Greeks have a naïve respect for fame, of which there
was promise in Photini’s talent, so her relatives willingly abstracted
a portion from the family funds for her use.

One October morning, Photini, a stripling rather than a girl, of
fifteen, with big keen yellow eyes and soft dark curls breaking away
from the eyebrows in petulant confusion over and round her head like a
boy’s, escorted by a faintly disapproving and anxious father, left the
Piræus on an Austrian liner bound for Trieste. Not at all a pretty or
attractive girl, most people would decide; of a vulgar indefiniteness
of type and a coarseness of expression hardly excused by the charming
hair and strange eyes. But she had the virtue of extreme youth on her
side, as shown in the slender and supple frame, in the freshness and
surprise of her glance, and in the rounded olive cheek melting into a
full throat like a bird’s. And youth, God bless it, carries its own
apology anywhere; it is the time of possibilities and vague hopes. This
girl might, nay, must grow less brusque, less vulgar, less boyish with
the development of womanhood; and as her features would refine, so
would her heart, at present as safe and hard as a coral, expand and
open out its hidden buds of tremulous sensibility and delicate feeling.

Her second year in Leipzig brought her the third medal, and a decided
reputation, yet there were many complaints against her. She had
unpardonable fits of idleness broken by explosions of temper, and
language hardly less gross than what might be expected in the lowest
phase of society. These shortcomings, added to a sharpness of manner
and a coarseness of mind, terrified and astounded her masters, who,
however, were ready enough to overlook such deficiencies when under
the spell of her masterful playing. A girl of seventeen with already
an unmistakable fire of inspiration and an echo of Liszt in her touch
was not to be despised clearly, whatever her vices, and they, alas!
were many, and promised to be more. Her companions shunned her, and
her masters spoke of her as “La gamine,” no other appellation being so
justly indicative of her appearance and manners.

In the fourth year she left the Conservatoire, its acknowledged star,
and capable now of steering her own course in whatever direction
impulse or deliberate choice might push her. One of the fortunate
of this earth, standing, at twenty, apart, wrapped in the conscious
cloak of genius, a majesty, alas! she was incapable of measuring, and
which she was destined only to trail in the mire without reaping any
benefit, pecuniary or social, from its possession. It was almost as sad
a mistake on the part of Nature as if she had endowed one of the lower
animals with some glorious gift which could never be to it other than
a grotesque ornament. The girl understood nothing of responsibility,
and yet she was proud, unapproachably proud as an artist. She felt and
gloried in her superiority in a stupid senseless way; could not acquit
herself of the commonest civility towards those who were desirous of
helping her, had not the remotest idea of gratitude or the art of
gracious acceptance, and considered inconceivable rudeness to every one
who addressed her as her natural right. She ought to have been happy,
and would doubtless have been so had she known ambition, or felt a
moderate but healthy desire to please. But she was hardly conscious of
feelings of any kind, only of blind dim instincts of which she could
give no account to herself. Poor dumb, unfinished creature with but
half a soul, and that run to music. It was pitiable. As she massed
follies, proud stupidities, and degradations one upon the other, until
the thinnest thread of common sense, of merely animal self-protection
was lost to view, one could only wonder and grieve, but not excuse.
Nature seemed to have been the sinner, and the extravagant creature
her victim. And then there were lucid moments--wretched awakenings,
stupefied contemplation of the havoc that had been made of promise, of
ripe chances, and, by way of anodyne, a deeper plunge into the mire.

Her first act of independence was a concert in Leipzig which proved an
abnormal success, and then upon the advice of her director she went
to Vienna, furnished with letters for Liszt. The amiable and courtly
king of pianists received her with an exquisite cordiality, expressed
the highest satisfaction with her abilities, gave her a few finishing
instructions which she received, as was her wont, ungraciously enough;
used his influence in securing her success with his own special public,
and recommended her to Rubinstein, who was then on his way back from
England. This was the beginning of the only lasting period of lucidity
in her mad career.

She left Vienna with Liszt’s portrait and his autograph, “To the Queen
of Sound,” added to her meagre luggage, for it was not her way to
decorate her plainness of person by any unnecessary attention to her
toilet. Just as, music excepted, she was totally uneducated, illiterate
even, barely able to write a letter that would shame a peasant, in
Greek or German,--which languages she regarded as equally her native
tongues,--so her person was left rigidly unadorned. At twenty the
results of untidiness are not so deplorable as at thirty or forty, for
there is always the fresh round cheek and clear gaze as a relief, and
then the complete absence of vanity in a very young girl, constantly
before the public in a prominent position, is something so unusual that
one can afford to regard it with a smile of wonder rather than one of
disdain. The striking feature of the case was that she was fond of male
society--particularly of the admiring and love-making male. But heaven
help the innocence of the lover who expected her to put on a bow, or
brush her hair, or choose a hat with a view to please him!

Rubinstein was more than satisfied with her; paid little or no
attention to any eccentricity of exterior or manner, and was ready and
glad to do all in his power to advance her. After some years of hard
work and occasional public appearances, it was agreed that she should
spend a season at St. Petersburg.

Everybody was disposed to receive her with open arms and lift her to
a permanent and glorious pedestal. But good-natured and art-loving
Russian princesses and countesses had calculated without their host.
This young lady had no desire to be patronised or helped. People might
come to her concerts or to her as pupils, and they might stay away: it
mattered little to her which they did. In either case she was pretty
sure to regard them as idiots, and if they came to her they would have
the advantage of hearing it,--that was the difference, which made it
easier for them to stay away, as not only the Russian princesses and
countesses found out, but also the princes and counts. They might
invite her to their entertainments, but it was a wise precaution on
their part not to feel too sure of her presence--as for expecting
an answer to a polite letter or message, or civil treatment upon a
morning call or at a lesson, well, all this lay without the range of
probabilities for the most sanguine.

Her peculiarities were incredible. Rubinstein’s name and influence
opened every door to her, and the results were unique. She appeared at
one Grand Duchess’s in evening dress with woollen gloves, to the dumb
amazement of distinguished guests, one sprightly duchess wondering why
she had omitted to come in waterproof and goloshes. When introduced
to an ambassador, and informed of his passion for music, she coolly
surveyed him from the top of his bald head to the edge of his white
gold-striped trousers, and said to her host: “I do not want to be
introduced to him. A fellow in gold can know nothing about music.”

Her pupils she treated even worse. One young countess who was studying
Chopin with her sent her a rich plum cake. The Natzelhuber, as she
was called, was smoking a cigarette when the servant entered with the
countess’s letter, followed by a powdered footman who presented her the
cake with a stately bow.

“Does your mistress fancy I am starving?” roared the artist, throwing
away her cigarette and seizing the cake in both hands. “What do I want
with her trumpery cakes? Tell her that is the reception it met with
from Photini Natzelhuber.”

She opened the door, rolled the unfortunate cake down the stairs, flung
the gracious note after it, and upon them the frightened footman, who,
not foreseeing what was coming, was easily knocked off his balance by
her powerful little wrists. Of course the countess discontinued her
studies of Chopin, and the Natzelhuber can hardly be said to have been
the gainer in the transaction. These were the stupid blunders that left
her soon without a friend or a well-wisher. Incapable of a mean or an
ungenerous act; incapable of uttering a spiteful word behind an enemy’s
back, she was equally incapable of uttering a gracious one to the face
of a friend. The habit of recklessly indulging in vile language which
she acquired in the streets of Athens never left her, and ambassadors,
noblemen, artists and friends who momentarily offended her were never
less than “pigs, asses,” and other such gentle and inoffensive beings.
She could not help this failing any more than her bad temper and her
passion for brandy and sensual pleasures of every kind.

“I know I am only a street vagabond mistakenly an artist, but I cannot
help it, nor do I desire to be otherwise,” she would say, in her
clearer moments. “I am mad too, and that I cannot help either.”

Deeply tragic assertions both, but not more deeply tragic than the
wasted life and abilities of the woman who made them. The irritable
creature, sick to death of Russia, sick of the perpetual and
humiliating contrast between her condition and that of those around
her,--a humiliation she scorned in the majesty of artistic pride to
admit to herself, but smarted from in that vague, unrecognised way
all feelings outside music and the grosser sensations stirred within
her,--left St. Petersburg without even sending her P. P. C. cards.

She appeared next in Munich, now twenty-seven, at the height of
artistic fame, only second to her master, able to command the best
audiences and prices, with a European reputation for a startling
perfection of _technique_, a grandeur of inspiration and a simplicity
of interpretation that only goes with absolute mastery. Rubinstein
and others had dedicated several works to her, and for ten years she
traversed the musical world a splendid enigma, a blight, a shame and
a sorrow. The possession of certain irregular passions might have
found ample apology in her genius, but the Natzelhuber so degraded
her art that it quite sank into abeyance in the presence of her
iniquities. The wonder was soon, not that such an artist should be
so gross, but that such a soulless creature should possess the power
of thrilling her hearers with every delicate perception of sense and
harmony. As the years gathered over her, a curious slowness, almost a
dignity of movement was noticeable in her. She began to awaken to the
consciousness that the Natzelhuber was a kind of sovereign in her way,
and should attract the eye and silence frivolous tongues by her manner
of entering a room. She was stouter now, but carried her bulk well,
holding her head erect and looking calmly at each speaker with those
strange yellow eyes of hers, so luminous under the boyish, feathery
curls. But the light in them shone from no spirit or soul,--sensuously
attractive were they, like those of a Circe.

Thus life found her at thirty-five, alone and friendless, though the
Viennese were well disposed towards her upon her reappearance in their
midst. But she was too embittered and cross-grained to care greatly for
their applause, and accepted the love Agiropoulos offered her renown
rather than her wretched self, as a kind of feeble protection from
her own society. Her princely disdain for money and the making of it
left her very naturally in constant debt, and this state of things was
hardly calculated to improve her temper.

About this time young Ehrenstein came to Vienna in search of that
distraction we are all agreed to prescribe in the first stage of
bereavement. He knew Liszt, and from him procured a letter of
introduction to Photini. Determined to make a good impression, he
ordered expensive tailoring, and went forth to subdue in the amiable
superiority of sex and social elegance. The door was opened to him by
an extraordinary woman, who held a cigarette in her hand, and glared
furiously upon the timid Cæsar who had come to see and conquer.

“What do you want with me, young man? I do not know you, and
furthermore, I do not wish to know you. I am not at home.”

Not a reception calculated to justify a young man’s innocent and
kindly estimate of his own value. Rudolph’s heart was in his mouth,
and the mildest form of expostulation was checked by fright and
amazement. Meeting Agiropoulos, he disclosed his hurt, upon which that
good-natured individual hastened to remonstrate with his irascible
friend.

“Why on earth did you treat poor Ehrenstein so badly?” he asked,
surveying her with a look of impertinent amusement. “Do you know,
Photini, you often provoke a fellow into wishing you were a man that he
might relieve his feelings by a good open fight. But now to quarrel or
reason with a woman like you! Ouf! You are impossible!”

“There is the door, if you are tired of me. If not, stay and hold your
tongue,” was the contemptuous retort, between two puffs of a cigarette.

Agiropoulos had a certain sense of humor and a keen appreciation of
originality in any form. He laughed, and proceeded to roll a cigarette
in a very comfortable attitude.

“But really, my dear Photini, you were wrong to behave as you did to
the lad. He is a very fair dilettante. He has just come from Pesth,
where he saw Liszt, who gave him a letter for you. He is wildly
desirous of hearing you play.”

“It is possible. He should have said so. How was I to know that Franz
Liszt would send me a yellow-headed girl in trousers?”

“But you did not give him time to say anything. You never do.”

“Nobody ever has anything to say that is worth listening to. Poh, Poh,
Poh! The silliness of men and the weariness of life! Tell the fool he
can come to-morrow, and I’ll undertake not to eat him.”

“He will be delighted to receive such satisfactory, and, on the whole,
rather necessary reassurance. His nature is so knightly that upon no
consideration, even the fear of offering himself as a meal, would he
dream of refusing to obey a lady’s mandate. And after his adventure
of yesterday, it is natural to suppose that he would view compliance
to-morrow with considerable trepidation of the possible results. By the
way, Photini, I am going to Athens in the morning.”

He looked at her tranquilly, quite prepared for an explosion. She flung
away her cigarette, glanced at him just as serenely, and said:--

“So! Then I will follow you.”

“That is kinder than anything I had dared to hope from you, Photini,”
said Agiropoulos, gracefully. “Then you care for me enough to disturb
yourself on my account.”

The Natzelhuber lighted another cigarette, puffed silently awhile, and
fixed her lover with her steady imperturbable gaze.

“Don’t flatter yourself, my dear fellow! I never disturb myself for any
one, but I am sick of Vienna.”

“It strikes me, my excellent friend, you are sick of most places in
an incredibly short space of time,” said Agiropoulos, sarcastically,
nettled by the coolness, of which he wanted a monopoly.

“Possibly.”

“I hope you will be civil to Ehrenstein to-morrow. Play him the
‘Mélodiés Hongroises.’ His mother was a Hungarian, and he adored her.
The ‘Mélodiés’ will send him into Paradise.”

“I am not conscious of a desire to procure him that happiness. What the
devil do I care about his mother or himself? Either the fellow knows
music or he doesn’t.”

Agiropoulos was speeding on his way to Athens while Rudolph was sitting
in the Natzelhuber’s undecorated parlor, listening to the magic
“Mélodiés Hongroises,” wherein enchanting dance and melody spring
exultingly out of subtle waves of variation, their impetuous joy
broken suddenly by sharp notes of pathos and vague yearning. Music so
gloriously rendered thrilled him into instantaneous love, and his soul
was lost irretrievably in exquisite sound.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE RESULT OF THE BARON’S ADVICE.


It was the eve of Madame Jarovisky’s ball, and nearly a week had
elapsed since Rudolph Ehrenstein had permitted himself the painful
pleasure of a visit to Mademoiselle Natzelhuber. He was young and
impressionable enough for a week to work a rapid change in him under
novel circumstances. He mixed freely in the distinguished diplomatic
circles of Athens, had been with the Mowbray Thomases to Tatoi, played
cricket with Vincent, whose English-French was a source of piquant
amusement to him, his own being irreproachable, played tennis and drank
tea with the rowdy American girls his aunt disapproved of, and was
accompanied by Miss Eméraude Veritassi when he charmed a small audience
with Raff’s _Cavatina_. The Baron von Hohenfels expressed himself
delighted with his nephew’s success, praised his air of distinction and
reserve, wished him a little less shy, however, and implored him to
cultivate the virtues of tobacco.

“It gives a man a certain tone to be able to appreciate a good cigar,”
he explained, airily. “You are improving undoubtedly. Your behaviour
with Mademoiselle Veritassi last night was quite pretty and gallant. I
may mention, Rudolph, that neither your aunt nor I have any objection
to Eméraude Veritassi. Her style is good, and her French--well, should
you think of diplomacy by and bye, you would have no reason to be
ashamed of it. She is about the only Greek girl I know who looks as if
she had been brought up in Paris. Yes, by all means cultivate her, if
you are disposed that way, though perhaps it would be wiser to choose
your wife at home.”

Rudolph blushed and smiled pleasantly.

“Is it not rather premature to talk of marriage for me, uncle?” he
asked, quizzically.

“Quite so. Still, it is possible for a fellow at your age to get
disagreeably entangled, and a respectable marriage, you know, is always
preferable to that. Amuse yourself, by all means; I would not restrict
you in that line. You must be a man of the world, and gallantry is the
very finest education. As I said before, in the regular way, there is
no objection to Mademoiselle Veritassi, but for all irregular purposes,
stick to the married women, my dear boy. Become a favourite with
them, and study an attitude of delicate audacity, a kind of playful
_rouerie_.”

All this was Hebrew to Rudolph, but he took care not to press his uncle
for an explanation. Instead, he went upstairs, and donned attire less
ostentatious and theatrical than the forest coat and long boots. In a
faultless suit of navy-blue he was seen an hour later upon the Patissia
Road walking towards the Platea Omonia, and a brisk pace brought him to
Photini’s door. It was opened by Polyxena, as rough and untidy as ever,
who jerked her thumb towards the stairs, and growled:--

“You’ll find her upstairs.”

Rudolph’s heart beat apprehensively as he slowly mounted and knocked
outside Photini’s door, which he opened gingerly after a loud “come in.”

“Oh, it is you!” the Natzelhuber exclaimed, more graciously than usual.
“I thought it was that fool come for her lesson. Sit down, and let me
look at you.”

Rudolph obeyed and smiled enigmatically, as he steadily met her lambent
gaze.

“What have you been doing with yourself since I saw you?” she demanded,
imperiously.

“Nothing in particular,” said Rudolph.

“Humph! Your face does not show that.”

“May I ask what it shows to your glance of investigation?”

“You are growing impertinent and fatuous. Have you been studying the
excellent style of our friend Agiropoulos?”

Rudolph drew himself up proudly. He, a high bred Austrian, to be
compared with a vulgar Greek merchant! He drew his aristocratic brows
into an angry frown, and raised an irreproachable hand to his fair
moustache:

“I cannot think that anything in me could remind you of Monsieur
Agiropoulos.”

Photini came over, and stood in front of him with folded arms, calmly
surveying him; then she leant forward, and placed her hands on his
shoulders, laughing.

“They have doubtless been telling you what a fine fellow you are, and,
my dear child, they have been telling you a most infernal lie.”

Rudolph burst out laughing, and took her two hands into his, which he
held in a gentle clasp.

“Mademoiselle, you are a very extraordinary woman. Some people might
say you are rude. I hardly think the word applies to you. I don’t know
what you are.”

“Mad,” said Photini, drawing him to her and kissing him.

Rudolph went red and white, and started back as if he had been shot.
No woman, except his mother, had ever kissed him, and the experience
coming to him thus, suddenly and unsought, filled him with an
inexplicable anger and pain. Without a word Photini walked straight to
the piano, and the silence waved into the unfathomable loveliness of
Chopin’s “Barcarolle.”

It was a perfect apology. It must be confessed, this woman so dreadful
of speech was delicately cognisant of the language of the soul. Had
she been playing for a lover, she could not have done better. But she
was scarcely conscious of love for Rudolph. Her thirty-five years of
wretched hilarity and miserable sadness had left her heart untouched
until now, but she was too proud to acknowledge even to herself the
steadily growing interest and yearning awakened in her by the innocent
eyes of a lad, and while she played she resolutely kept her face
averted from Rudolph’s. So she saw nothing of the varying emotions that
swept across it as the notes at her magic touch rose and fell. First
his eyes closed, then opened and rested upon her profile eagerly; a
feverish red burnt in his cheeks, and his breath came hurriedly. A
sense of ecstasy oppressed him, and he drew near her as if impelled by
a force independent of his control. She looked up, and saw that his
eyes were wet, and he burst out:--

“Oh, it is dreadful, I can’t bear it, but I love you!”

Before she could make answer to this unflattering and anguished
declaration, the door opened, and Andromache Karapolos stood upon the
threshold. Rudolph moved hastily back, and met her glance of pleased
surprise with one of almost passionate gratitude. The spell and its
compelling influences had ceased with Photini’s last note, and now he
was only dreading the consequences of his insane avowal, and patiently
awaited the inevitable scene.

But for the first time in her life, Photini showed an amiable front to
an intruder. She looked gently at Andromache, turned with a commanding
gesture to Rudolph, and stood for the girl to take her place at the
piano. Though wishing to escape, Rudolph felt that the words he had
just uttered laid him under a new obligation of obedience, and he went
and stood at the window, with his forehead pressed dejectedly against
the pane, looking down on the bright street, while he speculated
drearily on what was going to happen to him.

Andromache’s slim brown fingers ran swiftly up and down the piano
several times before a word was uttered. Photini watched them
attentively, and then said, very graciously:

“That is much better. But your thumb is still too exposed, and you sway
your body too much. You are not supposed to play from the waist. You
must give another week to scales, and then we’ll see about exercises.”

Andromache rose, and said her brother was waiting downstairs for
her. Rudolph looked round at the sound of her voice, and thought her
prettier than before.

“Why, Mademoiselle Veritassi would seem plain beside her,” he said to
himself, but his fastidious eyes, running over her dress found it
common and ill-cut.

The March-violet eyes rested a moment on his, and were lovely indeed by
charm of dewy freshness and girlish timidity. Andromache blushed to the
roots of her hair, and the blush was reflected on the young man’s face.

In her nervous tremour she dropped one of her gloves, which he hastened
to pick up, and when he handed it to her, they exchanged another glance
of mutual admiration, and blushed again more eloquently than before.
This short pantomime of two susceptible young creatures was unheeded by
Photini, who was tranquilly lighting a cigarette, and when Andromache
with a low inclusive bow and a soft “Καλἡ μἑγχ σας,” departed, Rudolph
stood in silence at the window to catch a glimpse of her down the
street. He saw her cross in the direction of the Academy with a tall
military man, in whose black uniform and crimson velvet collar, he
recognized an artillery officer. For some foolish undefined reason he
rejoiced in this evidence of respectability in her brother.

“My dear child,” Photini began, when they were alone, “you made a
fool of yourself a moment ago. It is possible folly is your normal
condition,--I believe it is so with men of your stamp, but there
are degrees, and you passed the limitations when you made a very
uncomplimentary and absurd declaration to me just now.”

She paused to continue smoking. Rudolph breathed a sigh of relief to
find he was not taken seriously, and felt himself a cad for that very
reason. What right has a man to trifle with such emotions, and then
rejoice that he is not taken seriously? Such inconsequence is surely
unworthy a gentleman. He stared at her humbly and imploringly.

“See the advantages of smoking! One can hold one’s tongue,” Photini
went on, serenely. “And now, please remember that I am an ugly woman
of thirty-five, and you a handsome boy of twenty-one. I am old in evil
knowledge, you still in the shade of innocence, a very pleasing shade
as long as young men can be got to remain in it. You are an aristocrat,
and I am a woman of the people. You perceive, Ehrenstein, that we have
nothing in common, and now, go about your business. I have had more
than enough of you.”

“Photini,” he protested, touched by her brusque magnanimity, “I have
perhaps failed as a gentleman, but it is true, I can’t help loving you,
though I admit that nothing but sorrow can come of such love.”

“No, you don’t love me, you love my music. In heaven’s name, don’t make
a fool of yourself,” she roared.

“But don’t you want me to come again, Photini?”

“No, I don’t. Why should I?”

“Is it possible to care for me a little?” he asked, sulkily.

“You silly jackanapes! Why do you imagine I care for you?”

“Because you kissed me,” Rudolph jerked out boldly.

“And what if I did? There, I’ll kiss you again, and swear I don’t care
a rap for you,” she cried, half-laughing, and gathering his head into
her hands, she kissed his lips repeatedly. “Now be off, and don’t let
me see you come whimpering or stamping about this neighbourhood again.”

She pushed him firmly out of the room, and ferociously slammed the door
after him. When she was alone, she flung up her arms spasmodically, and
cried:--

“Ouf! the fool! I’ve saved him, and I believe he is grateful to me.
Poor Photini! You ugly, forsaken old soul, to love a yellow-headed
boy at your time of life, with nothing in the world to recommend him,
not even his stupid yellow head.” With that she poured herself out a
generous glass of brandy, and drank it off at a draught.

Poor Photini!

That afternoon Ehrenstein met the Greek poet in Stadion Street, and
they turned and walked together towards Constitution Square, where they
sat down at one of the numerous tables outside the Cafés and drank
black coffee. Captain Miltiades passed, looking more military and more
fierce than ever, twirling a ferocious moustache and roving a killing
dark blue eye in search of feminine victims. He stopped to exchange a
few words with the Greek poet, and was introduced to Rudolph.

“Has he not a very pretty sister who is taking lessons from
Mademoiselle Natzelhuber?” Rudolph asked, afterwards.

“Who? Karapolos? I never heard of a sister. I always thought he was an
antique orphan. No one knows where he lives. He is the most abominable
fraud in Athens,--a kind of military clown, but a brave soldier for all
that, in spite of his _blagues_.”




CHAPTER IX.

MADAME JAROVISKY’S BALL.


It was a mystery to the Karapolos how Madame Jarovisky had discovered
the existence of Andromache. It was customary for her to invite the
glorious and elegant warrior, with whom she had formed pleasing
relations at the Palace entertainments. Besides, Hadji Adam, the King’s
_aide-de-camp_ and the very particular friend of Captain Miltiades,
generally stipulated that his heroic comrade should have the right
of entrance into all the distinguished houses of Athens. But even
Hadji Adam knew nothing about his family, and how did it come that
the Desposine Andromache Karapolos received a card of invitation for
Madame Jarovisky’s great ball given in honour of an English Cabinet
Minister? Julia the elder was not invited, nor was little Themistocles,
the bank clerk. Another remarkable circumstance was the lateness of
the invitation. It came on the eve of the ball. Andromache’s mother
and Julia were strongly of opinion that no notice should be taken of
an attention conveyed with such strange discourtesy. They did not know
Madame Jarovisky, and no chaperon had been invited to accompany the
younger Miss Karapolos. But Andromache was wild with desire to go. She
had often glanced in marvelling admiration at the Jarovisky palace of
marble and statues and colonnades, though she was virtuous enough to
lower her eyes before the undraped statues of the terrace which she
regarded as scandalous. And now that the chance of entering its bronzed
gates and seeing the glories of its interior was presented to her, she
was passionately resolved to go. Miltiades was fond of Andromache, and
was easily persuaded into seconding her resolution. The head of the
house is chaperon enough for any girl, he explained to his weak mother,
and it was probably through Mademoiselle Natzelhuber that Madame
Jarovisky had learned of Andromache’s existence, which accounted for
the lateness of the invitation.

So it was decided that Andromache should go. The excitement put
Maria into a good humour, and she was heard to sing, while starching
and ironing white petticoats, the Captain’s evening shirt and lace
bodices. A little dressmaker was hired for the day, who at breakfast
sat opposite the warlike Miltiades, and blushed when Themistocles
filled her glass with wine. Everyone laughed and spoke together at
table, except the dressmaker and Themistocles, who regarded it as a
personal slight that he had not been included in the invitation, and
this insult added to the thought of the forbidden paradise in the next
street, more than ever convinced him that there was nothing for him but
to emigrate to England. After breakfast, instead of showing himself
upon Constitution Square, he retired into his own room, and his violin
dismally expressed his dissatisfaction in asthmatic strains supposed to
be Schubert’s.

Then what running about for the women, what screaming of reiterated
explanations, hysterical adjurations, differences of opinion as to the
looping of a flounce, the draping of a fold, the selection of a ribbon
or a flower! Maria was, of course, president of the house-parliament;
though her vision was frequently impeded by the tangled locks of hair
she found it so difficult to keep out of her black eyes. But the
warmest discussion has its end, and all longed-for hours eventually
arrive. When Themistocles arrived for dinner, he found he was the only
person insufficiently nourished upon the day’s excitement. Theodore
ministered to his wants, while all the women were in the girls’ chamber
robing Andromache.

Very pretty she looked when dressed in cream muslin striped with
silk,--an exquisitely soft and dainty texture made at the Ergasterion
of Athens--trimmed with bows of crimson ribbon and charming Greek
lace. Her costume was inexpensive, and looked home-made, but its
very guilelessness was an effective setting to her extreme youth and
simplicity. A Greek girl, whatever her deficiencies, is never awkward
or vulgar, and the only suggestion Miltiades could offer in the way of
improvement, when he examined her critically, was the brushing off of
some of the powder which marred the fine olive of her face. Miltiades
himself was resplendent in his full-dress uniform, his _grande tenue_.
More than ever did he resemble the mythical slaughterer of those five
thousand wretched Turks; and such smiling and satisfied glory as his
was calculated to depress and fill with alarm the breast of the Sultan
himself.

Andromache was muffled in a woollen shawl, and taking the arm of her
gallant escort, they went out into the cold blue air. They walked
gingerly down the slanting and unpaved street, dreading to splash their
evening shoes in the running streams over which they were obliged to
jump every time a fresh street broke theirs horizontally. When they
reached the even pavement of University Street, behind Hansen’s lovely
marble Academy, outlined sharply against the pure dark sky above the
perfumed patch of foliage and flowers between it and the University,
their footsteps rang out with a loud echo, Andromache’s high heels
tapping the stones aggressively. Already a line of carriages was drawn
up outside the Jarovisky’s palace. It was the largest ball given at
Athens for years. Every one who was not in mourning was there, and most
people who were.

Dr. and Madame Jarovisky received their guests at the head of the chill
and magnificent hall. When Miltiades appeared, Dr. Jarovisky shook
his hand most cordially and asked after his wife and children, shook
hands with Andromache, and remarked that he never saw her looking so
well, and was delighted to renew his acquaintance with her. Miltiades
telegraphed her a glance of warning against any expression of surprise,
and explained to her afterwards that Dr. Jarovisky never remembered any
of his guests. Madame Jarovisky feebly expressed the pleasure it gave
her to see Miss Andromache Karapolos, and hoped she would enjoy herself.

The rooms were crowded, but in spite of heavy perfumes and laughter and
light, they were freezingly cold, built as they were of marble, with
porphyry pillars and mosaic floors. Andromache shivered a little, and
looked anxiously around while her brother twirled his moustache, and
beamed a fatuous smile upon the groups he swiftly scanned.

“See, Miltiades, there is Hadji Adam flirting with Madame von
Hohenfels. How handsome he is! and how distinguished she.”

“Madame von Hohenfels is what the French call _grande dame_. I was
introduced to her nephew yesterday. He is a very pretty fellow. I
daresay he is somewhere about.”

They entered another room, and here Andromache’s quick glance singled
out a noticeable group of laughing and chattering young persons.
Mademoiselle Eméraude Veritassi, beautifully arrayed in costly glory
from Worth, was its centre, and round her hovered or buzzed like bees,
Miss Mary and Master John Perpignani, Agiropoulos, the Greek poet, the
young ladies of the American Legation, Ehrenstein and Vincent Mowbray
Thomas. At that moment Rudolph happened to look round and met the
March-violet eyes, bewitching in the eloquent delight of recognition.
She blushed prettily, and an answering blush asserted sympathy on his
boyish face. He broke away from the gay crowd, and saluted Captain
Karapolos with insinuating cordiality.

If there is a thing the Greek has, at all hours, and in all places,
at the disposal of his fellow-man, it is his hand. He shakes hands at
every possible pretext, or he embraces. How he would express himself if
that method of greeting were suddenly suppressed by act of Parliament,
it is not for me to say, but I imagine he would pay a fine rather than
forego the habit. Miltiades, after a jaunty military salute, of which
he was equally profuse, held out a white-gloved hand, and then stood
with the other gracefully reposing on his hip to discourse to Rudolph
in unintelligible French.

“Vous êtes bien, Monsieur,” he began cheerfully.

“Mais oui,” responded Rudolph, smiling at Andromache to whom he
bowed deferentially. “Est-ce que vous voudriez bien me presenter à
Mademoiselle votre sœur?”

“Monsieur Rudolph Ehrenstein; Andromache--ma sœur,” said Karapolos,
with a flourish, and then discovered that he had come to an end of his
French. He smiled largely, and his teeth and handsome eyes, so like his
sister’s, did duty for speech.

And while he was ogling Miss Mary Perpignani, to whose satisfactory
dowry he aspired, audacious Rudolph had asked and obtained Andromache’s
first quadrille, and furthermore secured her for the cotillon, which,
of course, Miltiades would conduct according to custom.

“Vous me ferez l’honneur, Monsieur, de me confier Mademoiselle votre
sœur?” Rudolph asked.

“Certainement,” assented Karapolos, delighted at the unexpected
remembrance of a new word. “Je--je, comment--tell him, Andromache, I
want to dance myself,” he burst out in Greek.

Andromache translated his wish, and as she spoke, with an expression of
shy and charming deprecation, dark and light blue eyes held each other
in fascinated gaze. Rudolph’s heart, as fresh and innocent as hers,
began to comport itself in a very irregular fashion, and his frame
thrilled under a sense of exquisite emotion. Her French was a little
halting, and he was obliged to choose the easiest words for her, but
how pleasant it was to hear her speak? The dancers were taking their
places for the first quadrille, and Rudolph offered Andromache his arm.
He reddened with pleasure when he looked down and saw her little hand
in a white silk glove on his coat sleeve. From that moment he thought
silk much prettier than Suède or kid. There was something birdlike and
irresponsible in the awakening passion of these two young creatures.
Neither dreamed of struggling against it or of consequences, but simply
fluttered towards each other with lovely glances of sympathy and candid
admiration.

The Baroness von Hohenfels, talking to the Right Honourable Samuel
Warren, M. P., raised her gold _face à main_ to scrutinise the dancers
casually, and saw her nephew with his dowdy and much too pretty
partner. She frowned a little, noting how completely absorbed he was
and on what an intimate footing the young pair already appeared to be,
and looked round in search of Mademoiselle Veritassi, whom she saw
dancing with the amiable Agiropoulos. She beckoned imperiously to her
husband, who obediently left the side of the English Minister’s wife,
and courteously begged to be enlightened as to the cause of her signal.

“Who is that girl Rudolph is dancing with?”

“You surely don’t expect to find me posted up in the names and
parentage of all the young ladies of Athens?” laughed the easy baron,
looking round.

“Have you eyes in your head? Can’t you see that they are flirting?”
protested the baroness.

“He certainly is greatly taken up with her. I fear, my dear, instead
of being the muff I believed him, your nephew is an inveterate flirt.
But I’ll inquire about her.”

The baron went back to Mrs. Mowbray Thomas, and the popular poet
passing, the baroness touched his arm with her fan, and smiled him an
arch invitation.

“M. Michaelopoulos,” she asked, taking his arm, “you know everybody in
Athens, don’t you?”

The poet modestly deprecated any such pretension.

“Well, at least you can tell me who that exceedingly attractive young
lady is my nephew is dancing with.”

The poet glanced down the room and singled out the couple.

It was impossible for the dullest observer to mistake the language of
eyes that constantly dwelt on each other, and the foolish alacrity with
which their hands met and clasped in the decorous dance.

“To my eternal desolation, Madame la Baronne, I must admit my
ignorance. The young lady is, as you observe, charming--a little
provincial, perhaps, clearly not of our world, but charming, very
charming. I entreat you, Madame, to note the _naïveté_ and candour of
her--how shall we name it? _entrainement?_ the first pressure of the
dangerous influence upon tranquil maidenly pulses.”

“Confine yourself to prose, my friend, for the moment, and if you obey
me, discover for me her parentage, position, etc.”

“Madame has to command, and I fly to obey her. I conjecture Monsieur
Ehrenstein’s latest flame to be a little impossible Athenian, living
the Gods know where and how.”

“Latest?” cried the baroness, with a look of displeased inquiry.

“Ah! it is to see that Madame’s great mind soars in the empyrean of
diplomatic considerations or upon ground more ethereal still. Her
delicate ears do not catch an echo of the vulgar gossip upon which
grosser ears are fed.”

“I have requested you, M. Michaelopoulos, to discourse to me in prose.
What is the vulgar gossip you refer to?”

The poet looked chill, and said, with brutal directness:

“My faith! Madame, your interesting nephew is thought to be the lover
of that dainty morsel of womanhood, the Natzelhuber.”

Madame von Hohenfels frowned, and then laughed.

“You forget, Rudolph is noble.”

“I have not remarked that nobility is specially fastidious in such
matters. Women! Well, that is frankly a department in which there is no
accounting for tastes, and good blood shows as pretty an eccentricity
as any other.”

The English statesman was approaching, and the poet walked away with an
expression of countenance clearly indicating an intention to remember
the baroness’s snub. The dance was over, and in the pause which ensued,
Madame Jarovisky, mindful of Rudolph’s information that Andromache was
a very promising pupil of Mademoiselle Natzelhuber, politely requested
her to favour the company with a specimen of her powers.

“Your mistress has not yet arrived,” she added by way of encouragement,
“and you can take advantage of her absence.”

Rudolph warmly seconded Madame Jarovisky, and thus flatteringly
besought, Andromache suffered herself to be led by the young Austrian
to the grand piano. At first she was terribly nervous, and the notes
faltered and shook unsteadily beneath her fingers, but discovering
that small attention was really paid to her, and drinking in courage
and nerve from Rudolph’s pleasant glances of admiration, she gradually
acquired a firmer touch, and played fairly well, with brilliancy and
just expression, a dance of Rubinstein’s. She was more than half-way
through her performance, when a whisper ran through the rooms:--“The
Natzelhuber!”

The Cabinet Minister immediately adjusted his eyeglass, and held
his sharp, heaven-aspiring nose in a beatific pose that denoted an
expectation of diversion. Madame von Hohenfels smiled blandly, well
pleased that somebody else should have the onerous charge and torture
of entertaining the great woman. Photini was marshalled fussily up
the room by anxious little Dr. Jarovisky, himself a blaze of medals
and decorations, while his wife advanced with an air of pathetic
deprecation and prayer, as if by such feeble weapons the thunder of
this female Jove might best be averted. Phontini did not meet her
hand, but just glanced at her in calm disdain, and nodded a serene,
impersonal and inclusive gaze around, walked to a distant mantelpiece
and placidly took her stand there.

“Who is that playing?” she asked of Dr. Jarovisky.

“Really, Mademoiselle, I--I--but wait, I will ask my wife,” the doctor
hastened to say, and in his hurry to satisfy the inexorable artist,
stumbled over a half dozen chairs and guests before he reached his
perturbed wife.

“Calliope, she wants to know who is playing?”

“A pupil of hers--Andromache Karapolos,” said Calliope.

Dr. Jarovisky stumbled back in the same awkward and nervous fashion,
and said, excitedly:

“You will be charmed, I am sure, Mademoiselle, to learn that the young
lady who is delighting us all is a pupil of yours.”

“A pupil of mine, sir?” interrogated Photini, imperiously.

“Mais, oui, ja, ja, Ναἱ,” cried Dr. Jarovisky, in his fright exploding
into a multiplicity of tongues. “A Desposine Andromache Karapolos,” and
he smiled pleadingly.

“Oh, indeed,” said Photini, with that desperate calm of hers that
invariably preluded a thunderstorm.

She rose, and followed by her shaken host, walked slowly down the
room with the face of a sphinx. When she came near the piano, Rudolph
looked up, saw her, bowed and smiled in anxious conciliation. She
neither returned his bow nor his smile, but came behind Andromache, and
deliberately dealt that inoffensive maiden a sound box on the ear.

“May I ask who gave you leave to murder Rubinstein for the benefit of a
lot of idiots worse than yourself?” she cried.

Pressing her palm to the outraged cheek, now crimson from the blow,
Andromache turned round with a face held between indignation and
shocked fear. Her tongue refused to give voice to the piteous words
that rushed to it, and tears of wounded pride and shame drowned the
March violets.

“C’est trop fort, Mademoiselle,” Rudolph exclaimed, with a flame of
masterful passion in his eyes.

“Vraiment?” retorted Photini, coolly. “Occupez-vous de vos affaires,
Monsieur, et laissez les miennes,” and the utter vileness of her accent
seriously imperilled the dignity of her speech and deportment. “As for
you,” she continued in Greek, turning to Andromache, “you will be so
good as to leave Rubinstein, Ehrenstein and every other ’stein alone,
and content yourself with scales and exercises for the next year.”

In spite of her cruel and inadmissible behaviour, it was impossible not
to feel some sympathy with the just anger of a severe and conscientious
artist, though one naturally wished it had sought a less explosive
outlet; and it was equally impossible not to recognise that such
severity, in more measured and human form, is very salutary for the
inefficient and abnormally rash young amateur. But of course all direct
sympathy was for the moment concentrated on poor Andromache. Rudolph
followed her, looking like a quarrelsome knight, as he stood guard over
insulted girlhood, until her brother rushed forward to carry her home;
and swore to himself, with petulant emphasis, that never again would he
address a word of civility to the woman he mentally apostrophised as a
monster and a fiend.

“Ne pleurez pas, Mademoiselle,” he cried, feverishly. “C’est qui doit
avoir honte. Pour vous, vous devez la mepriser. Dieu sait si vous en
avez le droit.”

“Laissez-moi, Monsieur. Je ne puis rien dire,” said Andromache in a
choking voice, and seeing Miltiades coming towards her with a furious
stride and the kind of look he must have worn when he sent those five
thousand Turks to Paradise, she rushed to him and gathered her fingers
round his arm convulsively. But a warrior and hero like Miltiades could
not expect to appreciate the dignity of a pacific departure. With his
sister upon his arm he walked to the spot where Photini was seated,
listening to the bantering expostulations of Agiropoulos leaning over
the back of her chair. She looked impassively at the angry face of the
captain, then at the shamed and drooping head of Andromache, but said
nothing.

“Mademoiselle Photini Natzelhuber,” said Miltiades, with a curt bow,
“I have the honour to announce to you that my sister will in future
discontinue her music lessons.”

“And what difference do you think that will make to me?” retorted
Photini. “It will be her loss.”

“If you were a man I should know how to deal with you. But as you are
only a woman, I can but despise you.”

“If it gives you any satisfaction, I am happy to have afforded you the
occasion.”

With this little passage of arms, in which Miltiades may be said to
have come off second best, the Captain and his sister retreated,
proudly stopping to receive the apologies of Madame and Dr. Jarovisky,
and left the field to the enemy.

“A very curious scene indeed,” remarked the Right Honourable Samuel
Warren, M. P., to Mrs. Mowbray Thomas. “It is most refreshing to obtain
these picturesque glimpses of foreign manners.”

“They’ll have to drop asking that woman into society,” said the English
Ambassador. “She is downright dangerous. I never heard of such a thing
in my life--striking a pretty, inoffensive girl in a drawing-room.”

“We are perhaps a little insular and restricted, and our drawing-room
life is insufficiently supplied with excitement and surprise,” rejoined
the Cabinet Minister.

It was some time before the guests fell into the ordinary social
groove. Whether they danced, or chatted, or walked about, they managed
to keep a careful and apprehensive eye upon the artist who had so
unexpectedly upset the universal equilibrium. But Photini tranquilly
ate the ice Agiropoulos brought her, indifferent to the general gaze
fixed thus upon her, called for a glass of cognac, and then, with a
look of bland defiance at Rudolph, who stood leaning sulkily against
the wall, announced her intention of playing once only, and then taking
her departure. Rudolph neither heeded the purport of her movement nor
the direct challenge of her amber glance. His thoughts were away with
Andromache, telling him that she was prettier and sweeter than any one
in these crowded rooms, wondering if she were crying, and resolving to
meet her brother somewhere the next day and to obtain permission to
call on her. Photini he simply loathed.

But ah! good heavens, what a horrible test of his hatred! There was
that tantalising witch actually playing at him the fatal irresistible
“Mélodiés Hongroises.” He closed his eyes, not to be tempted to look at
her with softened emotion; steeled his heart against her that it should
not melt upon such sound; but he did not shut his ears. And when their
eyes met perforce, there was no longer anger in his, and there was
triumph in hers.




CHAPTER X.

A RANDOM SHOT.


Dr. Selaka was a proud and hopeful man on the morning he saw Gustav
Reineke depart for Syra, in charge of the amiable captain of the
_Sphacteria_. On his return from the Piræus, where he had bidden him
farewell, he bethought himself of the duty of inquiring into the
identity of this mysterious personage. He consulted Dr. Galenides,
who in turn consulted the German Consul and was referred then to
the Baron von Hohenfels. Herr Gustav Reineke was vaguely known upon
learned repute, but of his antecedents, parentage, means, and social
and domestic condition, no information could be accurately obtained.
Assertion was winged upon surmise, a very untenable resource with
foreigners. There might be a Frau Reineke and a domestic circle in
the background, and there might not. Of shadier relations no note was
taken. In olden days, we know, science went hand in hand with sharp
poverty--clearly an undesirable sequel to Inarime’s protected girlhood.
With such a possibility ahead, Dr. Selaka recognised the rashness of
arresting the eye of hope upon this particular marriage, despite the
depressing reflection that his maniacal brother would infinitely prefer
to support an archæological son-in-law, than see Inarime gracefully
enthroned above Athenian matrons, a jewel in solid, unlearned gold.

“Stavros is right. Better have the girl up to Athens, and play her
beauty upon the susceptibilities of our friend Mingros.” But it was a
minor question. His attention was engrossed by parliamentary strife
and the coming election. This was but the preliminary of ministerial
glory. Place him upon the tribune, Hellas would shake with the thunder
of his voice, and Europe hold down her abashed head in the face of
a violated Treaty of Berlin, and an unenlarged Greek frontier. He
mentally apostrophised Europe, and fell to speaking of himself, and
gesticulating wildly, as he walked from the station in Hermes Street to
inspect the new house he was building close to the Queen’s Hospital.
The work was progressing fairly, and as he made a bid for luck by
sacrificing a cock before the first stone was laid, he felt healthily
free from apprehensions of any sort. Dr. Galenides was coming out of
the Hospital as he turned to go, and the friends stopped to discuss the
situation.

“Stavros grows more irrepressible,” said Dr. Galenides, with a curious
smile. “He wields his pen not as a sword but as a whip to lash us all,
friends and enemies.”

“All bluster. He likes to be thought volcanic,” laughed Selaka, easily.

“Perhaps he has no objection to a reputation a trifle more serious,”
Galenides suggested, with a look ostensibly blank.

Dr. Selaka glanced sharply round at him.

“Do you distrust him?”

“It is a wise saying--trust nobody. We are all liable to change.”

“What change do you foresee in Stavros?”

“A change you will hardly appreciate,” Dr. Galenides replied, shutting
up his lips with a secretive air.

“Turncoat?”

“Well, well, report speaks queerly at times. Had you been wise, you
would have hesitated to compromise yourself upon pressure of his. But
it is customary for monarchs to yield to the blandishments of their
ministers. This understanding is the basis of the throne. Yours, my
friend, is not stable.”

“You forget that I am a monarch of a realm that knows neither ministry
nor change. By the way, I sent that young man off to Tenos to-day.”

“That’s another bold stroke. You are too fond of random shots. Beware
of bringing down the wrong bird.”

Selaka flushed darkly, and frowned in a threatening manner.

“You have the merit of making yourself understood.”

“I always endeavour to do so, Constantine. Good-bye, before we quarrel.
Come and dine with me this evening.”

The doctors shook hands perfunctorily. Selaka was profoundly troubled
by these hints against the political constancy of his friend and
adviser. He had sagacity enough to believe that Galenides would not
speak without some justification for his doubts. It was widely known
that Galenides was in the confidence of the Minister. Zeus! Could Oïdas
have bought him over?

He kept a keen lookout for any casual evidence of disloyalty or
coldness. For some days depression lay heavily on his spirits, and a
telegram from Pericles announcing the safe arrival of the stranger,
only temporarily lifted the gloom.

The week was spent in canvassing on his own account, and everywhere he
met with proofs of his follower’s remissness on his behalf. He taxed
Stavros with faithlessness, and his chequered feelings were promptly
whipped back into confidence by the other’s cordiality and grave
assurance.--He desert a friend! Might the soul of his father appear to
him that night, and announce eternal perdition to him, if he could be
guilty of such meanness! Might hell’s flames encompass him, and the
remainder of his days be in shadow! He thumped his chest violently,
showed by a crimson cheek the wound upon his honour, and the flame of
resentment was in his tawny eyes.

Dr. Selaka was convinced, and apologised. Remorse held his glance
averted from that of his wronged friend, so gave the other an
opportunity for looking slyly sideways at him, and pursing his lips
forward to strangle the perfidious smile about them.

In that evening’s edition of the “New Aristophanes,” there was a
sensational announcement that the editor ardently desired to explain to
the Athenians the motives of a change of policy, and he considerately
gave them _rendez-vous_ on the following Sunday afternoon at the Odeon
in Minerva Street.

Selaka was alarmed to the verge of unreason, and found no comfort in
an enthusiastic letter received that morning from Pericles, expressing
complete satisfaction with Reineke, and his conviction that he was
in every way worthy of Inarime. Is it human to be interested in
the marriage of a niece when signs of storm are visible upon the
political horizon? But it was still possible that a change of policy
in Stavros meant no defection upon the question of the mayoralty. All
he craved was the lawyer’s help to that post of civic honour, and in
parliamentary matters he was free as a weathercock.

There was something so irresistibly comic and original in the audacious
proposal of Stavros, that hardly a male in the town failed to put in
an appearance at the Odeon. The siesta was cut short, and at half-past
three numbers of black-coated civilians were crossing the Platea
Omonia, where the afternoon band was playing in front of the Café
Charamis. All the tables were speedily vacated, with empty coffee cups
to speak of the unwonted evasion. The band went on playing to the
nurses and babies, over whom a soldier or two mounted guard.

The Odeon was crowded, and many had to content themselves with being
packed closely in the passage, whence a second-hand knowledge of the
proceedings could be obtained.

Agiropoulos, always on the alert for surprise and excitement, was
there, chatting audibly with the glorious Miltiades. The poet looked on
with a casual, contemptuous glance, which clearly expressed his opinion
that these Athenians were so very provincial and absurd.

“Absurd? Yes,” ejaculated Agiropoulos, aggressively scanning the
assembly through his eyeglass. “That completes their interest.”

“By the soul of Hercules! that fellow they call the King of Tenos is
monstrous,” muttered the poet.

“Because he presents the front of a credulous Greek?”

“Because he is a damned idiot.”

Here their flattering comments were interrupted by the appearance of
Stavros upon the stage. There was lively promise of what the French
would call “une séance à sensation,” and all eyes were fastened
curiously upon the lawyer and recreant politician. As for his views,
we will not indicate them, nor attempt to reproduce his words. The
evolution he attempted to accomplish and gracefully explain might
fitly be described less delicately upon non-political ground, but the
atmosphere is everything.

Stavros was tightly buttoned in a frock coat, as became a legal
deputy. A semi-humorous, wholly false smile ran along his lips, and
his audacious eyes twinkled pleasantly with appreciation of his
difficulties. He saw Selaka, and he nodded deprecatingly, his smile
growing sweet and unsteady. And then, with a preparatory sentence or
two, he launched out on the sea of empty eloquence. He glided fluently
over trivialities, and lost his listeners in a fog of vague ideas,
stringing grandiose expressions with an abominable readiness, until
weariness sat upon the spirit of sense and begat regret for the wisdom
of silence. Alas! this is a wisdom the modern races are unwilling to
acquire. The wordy eloquence of the parliamentarian delights depraved
taste here as elsewhere, and as long as Stavros talked grandly of
Europe, the Treaty of Berlin, the enlargement of the Greek frontier,
the future grasp of Constantinople, he was quite able to drown his own
particular villainy with these sprays of aspiration. Some might think
him untrue to his political principles, but, after all, what principles
could any honest politician have but the good of his country? It had
been clearly demonstrated to him that his dear particular friend, Dr.
Selaka, the distinguished member for Tenos, was an unfit candidate for
the Mayoralty, and that the election of Kyrios Oïdas would redound to
the honour and glory of Athens.

“How much has he paid you?” Selaka roared, jumping to his feet, and
glaring at the orator.

“Come, Stavros, name the sum,” was shouted from the body of the hall.

Stavros reddened faintly, but he faced the insult with an imperturbable
air, dismissing it in disdainful silence. He maundered on, outrageously
displaying his conviction that men will swallow any amount of nonsense
from a public speaker. His speech was largely interspersed with such
sounding and significant words as “patriotism,” and “liberty,” the
glory of Greece, duty to his constituents, and the good of Athens, and
wound up by protesting that the eye of Europe was anxiously fixed upon
the coming election, and it behoved the Athenians to stand upon their
honour.

This farrago was followed by loud applause, and Agiropoulos and
the poet forced their way out of the hall to enjoy a hearty laugh.
Agiropoulos was satirical, and drew a moving picture of Europe
trembling upon the issue of the contest between Oïdas and Stavros. The
poet turned it into rough verse, and both exploded again in roars of
appreciative mirth.

“All the same, he is a villain, that Stavros.”

“A very clever fellow,” protested Agiropoulos, “and noticeably for
sale. I don’t blame a man for making the best of his vices and gilding
them for exposure.”

Selaka was coming out, in voluble altercation with the great Miltiades.
The captain looked majestically indignant, and frowned with dreadful
purpose. The Deputy shook his fist back towards the hall, thundered,
vociferated, and clamored frantically for vengeance.

“There is nothing for it, my friend, but a duel,” the captain insisted.
“You must fight him, positively.”

“I will fight him, yes. I, Constantine Selaka, will mangle, murder,
shoot him.”

This wrench of wounded trust was more than the wretched man could bear.
Agiropoulos took malicious interest in his raving and ranting. He
drew near and, by a sympathetic remark, put a point upon his victim’s
sufferings.

“By Zeus! I’ll shoot him, I will. I’ll riddle him with balls, and leave
his carcase food for the ravens.”

“A very laudable intention on your part, Kyrie Selaka, and one that
every reasonable man will appreciate,” said Agiropoulos, winking at the
poet.

“I have urged him to it,” Miltiades explained, heroically. “I am proud
to place myself in this delicate matter at the service of Dr. Selaka.”

“It is an honour to know a gallant man and a hero like you, Captain
Karapolos,” Agiropoulos rejoined gravely.

Miltiades touched his hat and bowed. His expression eloquently said:
“If it’s gallantry and heroism you’re in search of, you’ve come to the
right person.”

The distraught doctor, walking between his friends, uttered many a
rash word, and no suggestion less than murder could appease his wrath.
That evening it was bruited round Athens that he had sent a challenge
to Stavros, and the town impatiently awaited the exciting results.

Oïdas acted as second to Stavros. When the hour was fixed, he found his
principal plunged in the depths of despair. The lawyer and editor had
a very good notion of settling a quarrel with the pen and the tongue,
but when it came to a question of loaded pistols, capacity oozed out
through his finger-tips, and the sweat of mortal terror drenched his
brow.

“If the thing should not go off properly?” he suggested.

“Just hold it straight, and sight your target--like this,” Oïdas
explained, lifting the weapon.

“Oh, oh! take care, Oïdas. Mind it doesn’t go off,” Stavros
supplicated, making a rush for the door.

“You fool! It is not even loaded.”

Stavros sat up all night to write miserable letters to his mother and
sisters at Constantinople, and heaped curses on the head of his frantic
enemy. The doctor fared hardly better. Deprived of the stimulating
society of his military friend, his spirits sank, his mind became
unhinged, and his aspect took a funereal hue. He sent an incoherent
missive to Pericles, and lay on his bed weeping and moaning. When
Miltiades and Agiropoulos aroused him next morning, his eyelids were
appalling to behold, and his effort at cheerfulness most ghastly.

“A soldier never anticipates evil; is that not so, my brave Captain?”
laughed Agiropoulos.

“Could not this matter be more pacifically arranged?” Selaka implored,
vainly endeavoring to conceal his fear in the mask of humanity. “It is
a sinful thing, my friends, to waste the blood of one’s fellow in a
private quarrel.”

“If it comes to that,” said the ready Agiropoulos, “there is little to
choose between public and private quarrels. Indeed, more often than
not, wars have sprung from personal differences.”

“But the law of every civilised country forbids duelling. Stavros and
I are both lawgivers--that is, we represent the Constitution, and are
bound to uphold it. It would be monstrous for two members of Parliament
to break the law,” pleaded Selaka, covering himself with a last poor
remnant of virtue.

“We make the laws for others, never for ourselves. Hang it, man,
what’s liberty if it can’t provide us with a backstairs to the Temple
of Wrong, and can’t supply us with decent excuses for the evasion of
principles?”

“There is an abominable looseness in yours,” remarked Selaka, in a
doleful attempt at indignation.

“Come, Doctor,” Miltiades cried, clanking his spurs impatiently.
“Whatever the laws of the State may be, the laws of honour demand that
neither antagonist be a moment behind time. I have the pistols. Be so
good as to hurry your movements.”

The doctor’s laggard air suggested the gathering of scattered limbs,
and the necessity for adjusting them before a march could be effected.
He looked ruefully at the impassible Agiropoulos, and resented his
impertinent eyeglass and his irreproachable toilet. He looked at the
stern and gallant captain, wavered, and fresh words of protest died in
his throat.

“There is no fear of our being discovered and the affair stopped?” he
asked, in the tone of one to whom such a contingency would appear the
worst possible catastrophe.

“Oh, none whatever,” Miltiades replied, reassuringly.

“Oh!” ejaculated Selaka, with his heart in his boots.

Through a similar hour of agony Stavros had passed, and awaited them
with a poor imitation of stoic bearing.

“If anything happens, don’t forget to send this letter to my brother,”
Selaka entreated, as he tremblingly took the pistol from Miltiades.

“God have mercy on my soul,” he murmured, firing with closed eyes, and
shot--not his enemy but himself.




CHAPTER XI.

TENOS.


Like a roseate jewel in a circle of sapphire, with opal and mauve and
purple lights struck from it by the sun’s rays, lies Tenos upon the
deep and variable bosom of the Ægean waters. The Greek islands seen
from the sea are untiringly, unspeakably beautiful. Shadow and shine,
delicate hues and strong ones melt into an inextricable haze, as do
the sensations of the spectator, incapable of analysis as he watches
them. Energy oozes out through the finger-tips, the pulses quiet in
lazy delight, and the eye is filled for once with seeing. But the heart
is tranquil, unutterably content, and of speech there is no need. Here
at last is forgetfulness of sorrow and unrest. Here is the Eastern
sage’s dream realised, out of the reach of the envenomed shafts of
Fate,--floating indolently on a just stirred field of liquid blue, all
land and sky and water is a harmonious blending of the purest tints.
An infinitude of azure melts by tranquil degrees into milk-white; a
flame as bright as the heart of a pomegranate and blinding as unshaded
carmine, steals insidiously into the mountains of mauve, and changes
them to pink.

But it is only when your barque draws nigh the sleepy little hollow of
a very sleepy little town, that you are shaken out of your exquisite
dream of Paradise. You see the harsh subdued contrast of the white
houses and their green jalousies, looking as if they had fallen asleep
in the Middle Ages, and nobody had remembered to awake them since,--a
break of dim barbaric life upon a background of desolate rocks and
empty mountain sides. Tenos is certainly not Paradise. It has a little
pier, and is a perfect maze of misshapen arches, and filthy lanes,
calculated to make the least fastidious stranger shudder in mingled
fear and disgust. There are unsavoury little cafés, outside which, at
all hours of the day, uncouth men, in dirty costumes, sit drinking and
smoking narghiles, which the café-clods carry from one to the other
with the long tubes between their lips, and then pass it to the lips
of their customers, who are vivaciously, and in passionate earnest,
discussing the affairs of Europe, while Providence and the womenfolk
are equal partners in the care of their own.

But the town, as you skirt the lanes and arches that crowd down upon
the sea-line, has a charm exclusively its own. The tiny streets, when
they are paved, are paved with marble; and the houses on either side
have a cheerful conversational way of reaching across to shake hands
and exchange other amenities. An occasional palm tree lifts itself
up against the pure sky, as do the sails of wind mills, circled like
monster spiders webs. There is music in the trickling descent of the
mountain rills flowing over the marble and silver stones, in and out
of which the lizards, quick with life and the joy of the sunshine,
are ever coming and going. Then there is that singular construction,
the great shrine and pilgrimage of the Virgin of the East, a marble
building containing an expansive courtyard, a square of cloisters and
pilgrim-houses and a curious semi-Byzantine church, full of monstrous
treasures in gold and silver. Over the little town it towers in
glistening splendour, on the top of an inclined street, called “Virgin
Street,” enframed in silver olives and stately palms, and elegantly
paved outside and inside. The sloping way that runs from it right down
to the sea, might be ground of shining snow; it is moss embroidered,
and lit by the double geraniums that look like roses, and shaded by the
gloomy cypress.

The isle of Tenos has pretensions of its own that it were idle for
us to dispute. It is divided into sixty-two villages, some of which
consist of three churches and four houses, and none show less than
three churches for the accommodation of every dozen inhabitants.
It will be satisfactory for the law-loving reader to learn that
these villages are apportioned into four mayoralties, governed by
one mayor and three justices of the peace, and that,--late crown of
representative existence, until M. Tricoupis cruelly brought in a bill
a year or two ago, which affiliated this “tight little island” with her
near neighbour Andros,--it actually sent three members to Parliament,
to look after its interests in King George’s Boulé at Athens. But all
glory is evanescent. It has been proved by history that it is idle to
place any trust in ministers or princes. Heaven knows why Tenos was
shorn of her parliamentary splendour, but alas! what is to be expected
of an economic minister, who prefers to consider the debts of Hellas
rather than her greatness, and who rashly decided that the work left
undone by three Members of Parliament may be efficiently accomplished
by one? The chief and most exasperating neglect of these late
illustrious persons is the formation of roads. There is not a single
road throughout the island, and only two level spots, the lovely plain
of Kolymvithra, and a quarter of a mile round the great purple Castro,
where once the Venetians held their seat of government, their solitary
fortress towering over the ruined little town of Borgo. This oasis of
pathway, in a desert of precipices and rocky altitudes, runs from the
top of the episcopal village of Xinara to the Greek monastery in the
village of San Francisco. It is unknown whether it is a remnant of
Venetian civilisation or of Turkish barbarism. But it is quite certain
that it is not the result of the crown of triple representatives Tenos
until lately wore. For the rest of the time, the rider is conducted by
an unmanageable mule, which indulges a lively weakness for the dizzy
verge of a ravine, along which he phlegmatically picks his way. From
almost perpendicular escarpments he drops into awful depths of rock and
furze and nettle, to trail his anxious and unhappy burden through the
musical bed of a torrent, and damage irretrievably a new pair of boots
by forcing them into an inconvenient affinity with rough walls and
jutting branches.

After a while, when the frame becomes physically inured to the
sensational extremities of this kind of exercise, the traveller
discovers that, however dreadful the eccentricities of his mule, the
brute is very sure, if leisurely, and that though his position be
invariably a discomposing ascent or descent, no harm to his head or
his limbs will come of it. He gradually learns to take his troubles
philosophically, and look about him with perfect security. If it is
evening, he will note the heavenliest sky, and watch the soft mist burn
out the sapphire stealingly, while the strata of gold and rose fade
to pink and pearly opal. He will delight in the contrast of marble
mountain and purple thyme, cyclamens waving the meadows mauve, or
poppies covering them in scarlet flakes, and the tall daisies white
above the green like the foam of the sea, or anemones making a delicate
haze upon the landscape. There will be patches of white heath over the
hill curves, and poignant scents to stir the senses. And in and out
of the twilit gray of the olives, the darkening glance and sparkle of
the sea that is never out of sight,--now laughing through a network
of fig branches, then through the stiff spikes of the cactus, or the
graceful foliage of the plane, and white villages studding the orchards
and gardens like jewels. Over all hangs a strange note of happy
indifference, a rude naturalness that seeks no concealment and cares
not for shadow, hymns the smiles of blue water and the glory of the
sky; the sharp broad beauties of seashore and mountain and valley.

The people are as simple as their landscape. Their lives are spent in
Arcadian ignorance and unaccomplished simplicity, as unconscious of the
evils of destitution as of the temptation of wealth. They dislike work,
and manage to shirk it, for every one owns a garden, a few fruit trees,
a goat, a pig, and perhaps a donkey. Dirty in their persons, their
houses are invitingly clean, and stand always open.

Leaving the pleasing altitudes of a general survey, the reader is
invited to fix his gaze upon the little village of Xinara. Two things
strike the observer on entering its single street; the quantity of pigs
and unwashed children, and the signs of desolation and pre-existence
upon the blackened ruins in suggestive proximity with the comparatively
new houses and cottages. Near bright flowers and trellised verandahs,
stand broken walls with fig branches and weeds struggling through a
dismantled window, and curious Venetian symbols and legends wrought in
marble, now black with age and exposure, above the doors and windows
that have long since served the pigeons as convenient shelter. With the
pigs and poultry peeping through the wooden chinks, you see blocks of
marble crusted with gold and silver stones scintillating like flashes
of light. Beside a little glaring church, jaunty in its hideousness,
stand a row of houses burnt yellow and black, as if they had sustained
all the sieges of the Middle Ages, and pierced with pigeon holes like a
face with small-pox.

The street is divided in two by a dark stone arch. Instead of the
provincial inn, there are three clubs, the blacksmith’s den, the
carpenter’s rude workshop, and the single general store. This is kept
by the village Lothario, Demetrius, a splendid fellow inclining to
corpulency, who wears a ring, a fez, and even goes to the length of
washing his hands and face and combing his hair once a day. One is not
a village Lothario for nothing. He is married, and hence he adds a
disappointed and hopeless air to his fascinating crimson tie whenever
he serves or chats with a woman under forty. But he draws the line at
forty. Kyria Demetrius has attained that respectable age.

There is a fountain close by, where the women gather with red earthen
jars to draw water and indulge in cheerful social intercourse. It is
enclosed in a deep, damp arch, black and lichen-grown, with heavy beams
of wood supporting its roof, and higher up is the public laundry, a
tank with a sloping stone under it, where the laundresses scrub their
linen kneeling round, and converse in a dull undertone, varied by an
occasional tendency to scream.

The houses are reached by a small flight of marble steps, and are
always confined to one floor with a pretty terrace outside, and
underneath is stabling for the mules and donkeys and other live stock.

Beyond the archway lies the Catholic Cathedral, with the Bishop’s
Palace and Garden. The Church is of respectable size, but ugly, and
the Palace a dreary yellow building enlivened by the red tiles of the
pectinated roof. But the Bishop’s garden is charming. Goldfinches sing
in the Persian lilacs, and the rippling rills are never silent. In the
centre, there is a big stone tank and a sun-dial, and the oranges swing
like gold balls against the dark cypress. The valley upon which it
looks down is indeed a vale of delight. Olives paint a silver mist upon
the sunny landscape, and the fig and mulberry foliage lend it colour.
The girdling mountains of the neighbouring isles rise sharply against
the sky, and in and out their curves, opening upon the roseate shores
of Eubœa, breaks the sea like lapidescent blue, while through the
moist, grassy plain of Kolymvithra twists and swirls a vein of silver
water. The other side of the picture is a view of gloomy mountain,
bare grey rock and broken blocks of marble, rising above the tangle
of village gardens and trellised verandahs, with their showy display
of geraniums, carnations, roses and cactus drapery, from whose bed
of peaked leaves gleam large magenta stars. And here and there the
windmills make gigantic shadows upon the earth, flocks of pigeons shoot
like spots of illuminated snow through the sunlit air, and goats browse
amongst the scented furzes of the rocks, in easy companionship with
mules and kine.

To reach the house of Pericles Selaka, on the other side of the
village, the traveller must make his own pathway with the loose stones
in the bed of a minute down-flowing stream. The water is crystal-clear,
and nothing can be more engaging than its gurgle and sparkle, but damp
feet are the inevitable consequence of its acquaintance. After a wet
passage through the torrent-bed, more or less torn and troubled by the
neighbourhood of blackberries, thorny hedgerows and tall reeds, he
will have to cut his way through a stony meadow, jump the low, loose
walls that separate each field, tangle his limbs in a multiplicity of
straggling branches and uncultivated growths, and trample ruthlessly
upon the pretty heads of the wild flowers. Every shade in foliage,
and every hue and odour in flower will charm him: the delicacy of the
plane sets off the polished darkness of the oleander and myrtle leaf,
the moist glitter of the maidenhair enriches the ferns that spread
themselves like fans upon the rocks, and along the vine-branches the
shooting leaves begin to uncurl. From the hedges there will be the song
of the linnets and goldfinches, and under them the musical lapping of
water against stones.

Pericles Selaka’s house had originally belonged to a Venetian noble
family, and still showed the coat-of-arms wrought in marble on either
side of the gate, with a Latin inscription under a Venetian gondola. It
stood above the village, overlooking the two lovely valleys that divide
the flanks of the empty encircling hills,--hills bare of all but the
glory of their own tint, and the wavering clouds that sweep, soft and
shadowy, over the everlasting sunshine. Behind it the mighty Castro,
proud in its purple and grey desolation, bereft of its old splendour,
but still dominating the island like an acropolis, and in through the
openings of its crags, cleft in nature’s fury, runs the sea as through
a frame. The courtyard into which the gate opened was gemmed with
flowers. In the middle there was a well, and on either side a palm tree
with wooden seats under its shade.

It was winter, so the vine-roofed verandah was a flood of sunshine. A
short flight of marble steps led to the terrace above, whence Syra,
Delos and Naxos might be seen, as well as the sloping fields that drop
into the torrent below, and Selaka’s orchard and vineyard, which, at
that time, showed pale, slim lines of green just opening upon the brown
earth. A watch-dog dozing in view, lazily observed the regular rise
and fall of the digger’s spade, and only wakened to sharp activity
whenever a venturesome sheep or goat thrust itself upon his notice.
An oppressive silence lay upon the land, and there was silence in the
house whence the terrace opened.

The room into which you stepped from the terrace was simplicity
itself. White everywhere; white sofas, white curtains and white chair
covers, with a purple table-cloth edged with wonderful Byzantine
embroidery. On a black cabinet there was a goodly display of old Greek
jars and lamps; and inside, a tray of antique coins and exquisitely
carved silver. These heirlooms are to be found in the poorest Teniote
cottages. I have been served by a cottager with water and jam on a
heavy silver tray, the water in a delicate Venetian glass with armorial
bearings wrought in colours into the glass, and the jam in a costly
silver chalice. In a recess there were shelves fitted with the Greek
classics, from which the Latin writers were jealously excluded. Your
scholarly Greek despises Latin. Sitting at a side table beside a
window that looked out upon the Castro, was an old man bent over one
of these classical tomes. He was reading in a leisurely, familiar way,
as a connoisseur sips his port. Occasionally he lifted his eyes from
his book, and removed his black cap, all the while unconsciously and
swiftly rolling up cigarettes, and puffing with the same deliberate
appreciation noticeable in his manner of reading. He was a keen,
thoughtful-looking man, with a curious mingling of black and white in
hair and beard.

His solitude was interrupted by the entrance of an old woman, dressed
in a garment that may best be described as a black sack. She was a
serene little woman, very tidily built, with an indefatigable and
sturdy air, and in her brown face sparkled two preternaturally black
eyes. She wore a Turkish kerchief of red muslin wound round her head,
and outside this an enormous plait of false hair, as is the ungraceful
habit of the Island women. This was Selaka’s housekeeper and servant in
one. She was called Annunziata.

“This, Kyrie, has just been brought up from the town,” she said,
handing him a telegram.

Pericles took the telegram, opened it in his leisurely way,--one
naturally grows sleepy on a sleepy island. It was from his brother in
Athens announcing Reineke’s coming. Pericles frowned, and looked more
thoughtful than ever as he read the communication. As may be imagined,
it was neither very delicate nor very wise. It referred to a possible
desirable solution of Inarime’s future.

“Humph,” said Pericles, and crushed the missive in his hand, “my
brother is sending us a visitor, Annunziata,” he explained, curtly.

“A visitor! Has your brother taken leave of his senses? Surely the
visitor who proposes to come here cannot be other than a madman,” said
Annunziata, who appropriated the privilege of speaking her mind to her
master.

“He was always a fool,” assented Pericles; “however, it is essential
that we should sustain our reputation for hospitality; so, my dear
woman, you will be good enough to prepare a room for the guest.”

“And why should I prepare? Don’t you know that my rooms are always
prepared?” protested Annunziata, hurt in her honour as a housekeeper.

“Yes, yes, but there will be sheets to air, and flowers and such things
to put in the room. He is an invalid; and sick men are proverbially
difficult to please. They require as much spoiling as a woman,” said
Pericles, dismissing the subject with a majestic wave of his hand.

The subject, however, would not be dismissed from his mind, and he
sat there with his open book, his eyes persistently wandering from
one window to another, looking now out on the bright terrace and
then on the gloomy Castro behind. It was hardly human for a father
not to speculate upon the coming of this stranger, and its possible
consequences. A husband for Inarime! Nonsense! it was not to be
imagined that any stray adventurer, whom his brother might choose to
pick up, could possibly prove a worthy or desirable mate for that
pearl among girls. Besides, he was not prepared to give her to any man
who could not indisputably claim to be a Greek scholar. He knew the
sort of scholars Europe habitually sends to Greece. Self-sufficient
young men or tottering archæologists with a barbaric pronunciation and
a superficial acquaintance with Homer and Plato. These were not the
scholars he desired to know, nor the sort who, under any circumstances,
could prove congenial to him. As for Inarime, she was likely to be
still more fastidious. Her beauty and her great gifts entitled her to
contempt for less gifted mortals. While thinking thus, a shadow crossed
the light of the terrace, and a girl’s form stood framed in the doorway.




CHAPTER XII.

INARIME.


Anybody whose travels have led him to the Hellenic shores, knows too
well that the old classic beauty is almost extinct. But not quite.
Here and there, on the islands of the Archipelago, he may chance upon
a face that looks at him out of the other centuries,--stamped with
the grandeur of an unforgotten race in protest against a physical
deterioration that gives it the melancholy charm of isolation. This
vision is rare, but once seen it is beheld with breathless wonder.
There is nothing to compare with it. Other European types of beauty
sink beside it, as do Italian melodies beside a bar of Beethoven. It is
as if over a gray landscape the scarlet dawn broke suddenly, showing an
unhoped-for reality in glowing tints and soft lines no imagination can
picture.

Lit by the strong sunshine, with the faintest grave smile round her
lovely lips, as she met the puzzled glance of her father, Inarime
looked as if she sprang direct from the Immortals.

Something like her face the student dreams of, when he muses over the
great Dead. The small dusky head, its blue-black hair, softening to a
tawny sheen at the brows; the olive cheek as smooth as satin, almost
colourless except where it gathers the bloom of the tea-rose, or of
a shell held to the light. The full firm curves of the mouth, rather
grave than gay, but ineffably sweet, with paler lips than those of
the North; the delicate nose coming down straight from the forehead:
the low arch of the eyebrows, and the curves of the chin that show no
weakness. These details much contributed to the charm of the whole. But
its greatest beauty were the unfathomable eyes--of a deep brown with
an outer ring, which in any joyous mood gave them the gleam of amber,
while sorrow or deep emotion darkened them to the luster of agate. She
wore a dress of dull gold, with a bronze velvet collar and cuffs. The
front of the bodice was trimmed with large bronze buttons. It was not
a dress which Mademoiselle Veritassi would have worn, but then, on the
other hand, it was not a dress that Mademoiselle Veritassi could have
worn. Dowdy it was not, but strange, and looked as if it had grown upon
the young, firm, and supple form it clothed. Inarime had a pardonable
weakness for this most suitable gown. She had worn it constantly since
she had selected it from the merchant who brought the stuff from Syra,
with other splendid materials for the women and young persons of Tenos,
and the dressmaker, who had studied her art in that same elegant
centre, had made it for her. Indeed, she had never a variety of gowns,
nor did she seem to miss this source of happiness. Round her neck hung
suspended by a thin gold chain a little Byzantine cross, a relic of
her mother, and her abundant hair was gathered into a thick coil with
a long golden pin. It may seem strange that I should insist upon these
trivial matters, seeing it is generally considered that young girls
should be thus adorned, but it is not so in Tenos, and the artistic
delight Inarime could not have failed to take in her own beauty, apart
from any silly vanity, and with no desire to please the eye of others,
is a very singular deviation from the custom of Greek girls.

“Have you been waiting for me ever since, father?” she asked. A still
more curious fact, she did not speak the insular dialect, but pure
Athenian, with a faultless accent.

“Yes, my dear,” said Pericles, addressing her in the same language,
though he had spoken good Teniote to Annunziata. “It is well that you
have come now. I think, my dear, it will be better for you to spend a
few days with your aunt at Mousoulou, and it has occurred to me that
you might go there this afternoon.”

“But, why? I have no desire to go to Mousoulou,” protested Inarime.

“Well, if you would just please me in this matter, I cannot tell you
how grateful I should be to you, Inarime,” said her father, who always
treated her as an equal. For this young creature was to him more son
than daughter, since he had brought her up in a masculine fashion, in
the matter of education and training.

“It is strange, father, that you should turn capricious and mysterious,
but I will obey you in this as in all else,” she said, with an
exquisite gravity which likened her more than ever to a young goddess.

She was standing close to him now; and he got up, placed his hands upon
her shoulders, and looked earnestly into her eyes.

“It is no more than I might expect of you, Inarime” he said.

There was a dignity, a restraint about the relations of these two that
was very striking. Perhaps Pericles affected the manner and bearing of
the Ancients, with whom he exclusively communed, and perhaps Inarime
had ostentatiously caught this trick from him. Laughter with them was
as rare as anger, and both held their pulses in complete subjection.

Something of Inarime’s life,--while that lucky young man, known in
Greece as “the man of confidence,” who can be trusted to act as knight
to a lady, is leading her mule to the distant village of Mousoulou, and
while Gustav Reineke, on the “Iris,” is speeding towards the shores
of Tenos. This life is simple enough: unemotional, unanalysable; an
eager student from youngest years, the sole companion of a sage who
lived in the past. But Inarime enjoyed a local reputation that carried
the mind back to antique or mediæval days. The equilibrium of Europe
was not likely to be disturbed by it, but the peace of the island most
certainly was. All things we know are relative, and it is possible the
unknown and unsought conquests of Inarime would have been far enough
from causing any excitement to a London sylph. But besides Inarime’s
influence and reputation, extending over four mayoralties and sixty-two
villages, with a list of suitors headed by a bachelor mayor and the two
unmarried deputies, and including every single man and youth of the
island, the London sylph will be seen to play a small and insignificant
part in her own distinguished circle. She would probably turn up her
patrician nose at the addresses of a shepherd and a barbaric demarch.
But then the shepherd and the demarch would care as little about her.

Despite their inherited and undisguised contempt for women, the sons
of Hellas have sense and taste enough to know the value of an antique
head on live young shoulders. It was now nearly two years since the
mountaineers, meeting on the rocky pathways that scale the crags and
precipices and fringe the torrent-beds, began to ask why Selaka delayed
to choose a son-in-law. Each man regarded himself as the only proper
choice. And down in the _cafés_ the townsfolk and fishermen wanted
an answer to the same question. As a set-off against this suspense,
there was the satisfactory knowledge that Selaka’s choice would
find it no easy matter to bring home his bride. Indeed, a few young
bloods, like Thomaso, the Mayor’s nephew, a quarrelsome fellow given
to an undue consumption of raki, and Petrus Vitalis, whose father’s
recent death left him the proud proprietor of three Caiques, openly
spoke of abduction. Constantine Selaka was aware of all this, and was
extremely anxious that Pericles should select a son-in-law from among
his Athenian friends. Choice and preliminaries should, of course, be a
matter of strict secrecy, as a preventive of warlike explosion, for he
knew that Inarime’s suitors would prove as little amenable to reason
and fair play as the graceless suitors of the unfortunate Penelope.

And if, by delay, his niece should be carried off by the desperate
Thomaso or Petrus Vitalis, clack! Good-bye to the Athenian
nephew-in-law.

“Idiots! how dare they aspire to her?” Pericles exclaimed, whenever
such unsuitable proposal reached him.

“Well, Pericles, you must marry her to somebody, and you can’t expect
a Phœbus Apollo, with the classics on the tip of his tongue. You would
find him inconvenient enough,” the less exacting Constantine would
explain.

“Leave Apollos, though I would have no objection if one were to be had.
But do you seriously expect me to marry a girl like Inarime, as lovely
as Artemis, as learned and wise as Athena, to a clown? A fellow who
gets up at two of a summer morning to shoot inoffensive birds, and gets
drunk upon abominable raki while prating in vile Romanic about politics
and the Lord knows what, of which he understands nothing!”

“No, but there is Vitalis, the ‘member,’ who wants her.”

“May the devil sit upon his moustaches for a vulgar blustering fool!”
exclaimed the old man, forgetting Olympus. “What is your Vitalis,
Constantine? A boor. An uneducated lawyer, who could not tell a
verse of Euripides from one of Sophocles; doesn’t, in fact, know
that either existed, and never translated a sentence of Thucydides
in his life. A clown is better. At least he has a dim consciousness
that he is a barbarian. Whereas the other shrunken miserable being in
his ill-fitting clothes and European hat, deems himself the happiest
edition of a boulevardier. Boulevardier, save the mark! France has been
the ruin of us!”

“Then can’t you take Dragonnis, the other member?”

“No, I cannot. I don’t want any wretched politician for Inarime.
Dragonnis is as bad as his colleague--a pair of dunderheads. My
daughter will not marry a Teniote, neither will she marry a chattering,
gossiping Athenian. Some day I’ll take her abroad, and give her to a
scholar and a gentleman, who will see in her gifts and beauty something
other than the mere decorations of an upper servant and mother of a
family.”

Inarime had been the subject of disputes of this sort between the
brothers ever since that memorable day when the absence of shots
proclaimed to the village that a little “daughter of man,” instead
of the desired “son of God,” had come to bless the house. To the
friends and relatives, the intrusion of the unappreciated sex was
not, however, looked upon in the light of a blessing. According to
custom, people came and shook the hand of the injured father, condoling
loudly with the sorrowing and disgraced mother. But when Selaka’s wife
died shortly afterwards, and there was no boy on whom he could hope
to bestow his knowledge and learning, the father clung to Inarime.
He resolved to show the world, by his untiring labour, that a girl
may develop remarkable capacity and intellect. He cared little about
modern acquirements, but fed her mind exclusively upon the philosophy,
poetry, and history of her great ancestors. Homer and Hesiod were the
fairy tales of her childhood,--Plutarch the first book she learned
to read. She was familiar with all the ancient dialects and Greek
literature, from the time of Hesiod to the Alexandrian Renaissance.
She was taught to choose the simplest phrasing, and yet one that was
severely academical, from which all foreign interpolations of modern
Greek were expunged. The old calligraphy, too, was insisted upon, and
she wrote papers on the Trilogy from which an infallible University
Don might have learned much. Some of these papers her delighted father
contemplated sending to one of the German Universities, where he knew
that the fragrance of original thought and excellent style would be
more justly appreciated than in frivolous Athens. But he feared the
wrench of surrender such recognition from beyond the Ægean might bring.
A girl so perilously gifted might seek to plunge into the waters alone
and swim in depths beyond which his dim eyes and feeble hopes could not
follow. Besides, with him she was completely happy, and publicity is a
misery, a fret and a constant strain upon the nerves.

Thus she grew up unconscious of solitude or of needs other than those
which her surroundings supplied. As for the accomplishments which
occupy the elegant leisure of European young ladies, she was hopelessly
ignorant: would have been perfectly unserviceable at a suburban
tea-party or a game of tennis, and the popinjays who figure in polite
society would have scorned her, had they attempted to engage her in
conversation suitable to a background of moonlit balcony, or in the
movement of a waltz. But if she could not dance or embroider, and
sing Signor Tosti’s weeping melodies, and if her brown slender hands
looked as if their acquaintance with sun and air was considerably
greater than with kid or Suède, she could carry a water-jar from the
village fountain in an attitude that was a picture of grace, with a
light swinging step that was the music of motion--and this the London
sylph could not have done. Her father was strong upon the necessity for
thorough gymnastic training, and she could swim and run and ride a mile
like a young athlete. Even Greek boys cannot do as much, but then they
are not brought up by antiquated professors, who faithfully copy the
precepts of the old philosophers. Selaka, for this athletic training
cultivated a strip of sanded path in his farm near the sea, with the
shade of plane trees for rest. Here Inarime raced and exercised,
sweeping the sanded path with flying feet, and lips parted with the joy
of quick movement and the flush of health crimsoning her olive cheek.

Outside her books, her racing and riding, she had another important
duty--that of general letter-writer for Xinara and the adjacent village
of Lutra.




CHAPTER XIII.

REINEKE’S ARRIVAL AT XINARA.


It was a bright December afternoon when Reineke was left by the
_Iris_ upon the little pier at Tenos. Aristides, the “young man
of confidence,” who had safely deposited Inarime at her aunt’s at
Mousoulou, was sent by Selaka to meet him. Gustav inquiringly scanned
his conductor’s face. He disliked its inquisitiveness and keenness,
and was repelled by the familiarity with which the fellow held out
his hand. But he took the hand, and coldly expressed his satisfaction
with his new acquaintance, who explained to him volubly that it would
be advisable to rest a little in the town before ascending to Xinara.
Aristides then proceeded to guide the stranger to a little _café_,
and Reineke’s visible weakness made even a rest in such a locality
grateful. He sat quietly waiting for some coffee, and looked around.
Being an Eastern, he felt less shuddering repugnance to the place than
an Englishman or Frenchman would have felt. Besides, there was an
acute pleasure to be derived from watching the light flash upon the
blue waters, and gleam upon the lifted oars until they looked like
shining spears. He inferred that Aristides was the son of his host,
and conjectured that he would not be likely to draw very largely upon
such resources for intellectual enjoyment. And then, personally, he
disliked the Greeks, as we know. He was not restless or particularly
active, so that he could comfortably get through a couple of hours in
this indolent contemplation. But it was with a sense of relief that he
saw Aristides approach with a mule upon which he was invited to mount,
and slowly they made the difficult ascent. To a strong man such a ride
would be discomposing in the extreme; to a man still in the clutch of
an intermittent fever it was positive torture. It seemed to Reineke
that the attitude of the beast was a constant perpendicular, now
with its head for apex and now with its tail and this sort of motion
continued a good hour and a half. The musical flow of the torrent beds
and the echo of distant waterfalls were heard mingling with varied
bird-notes. But how to take æsthetic pleasure in these sounds when one
is momentarily expecting to be hurled into eternity, or, at least,
in peril of leaving various limbs about the precipices and ravines;
now frantically clutching forward and then almost prone backwards to
preserve one’s balance!

Little by little, however, his senses began to recover, and he was able
to take occasional glimpses of the strange landscape through which he
was being hurled. The gathering twilight was dimming the pure air, but
had not yet struck out the colours that lay upon the land. The meadows
were full of wild flowers, and he noted how beautiful some of the weeds
were. The bloom of the fields and the gray mist of the olives, and the
purple haze that lay upon the fig branches, tracing their intricate
pattern across the silent hills and making their own pathway for the
shadows, charmed him. The sparkle and murmur of water, the departing
smile of sunshine from the darkening heavens, the early stir of
shepherd life, an air so fine that every scent from valley and hillside
was discernible from the mingled whole, filled him with a sense of
exquisite content. And when he saw the beautiful valley of Kolymvithra
unfolded like a panorama under the village of Xinara, and the great
purple Castro lost in evening shade, he felt that his perilous ride had
not been in vain.

As they rode up the little village street, Demetrius and his satellites
were standing outside the blacksmith’s den. The presence of a stranger
naturally diverted their thoughts from the rascalities of the Prime
Minister at Athens, which they had been discussing.

“That, I suppose, is an Englishman,” said the handsome Demetrius,
removing his cigarette, and staring hard at Reineke with an air of
ill-concealed discontent, as he addressed himself inclusively to
Michael, the contemplative carpenter, and Johannis, the blacksmith.

“He is too dark for an Englishman; it is most likely he’s an Italian,”
suggested the carpenter, in a tone of apologetic protest.

“You fool! do you think that every Englishman is yellow-haired and
white and red?” retorted Demetrius, snappishly. “But you are not going
to deny, I hope, that the man has the conceited air of an Englishman?
No other people carry themselves as if the world belonged to them, and
those that are not English do not count. And what is all this pride
for, pray? Ten of their heroes would not make one of ours.”

“Very true, Demetrius,” concurred Michael, conciliatorily. “If England
had produced one Miltiades, we might all go hang ourselves, for no
other nation would be allowed to exist. Now here are we good-natured
Greeks, who count our heroes by the hundred, and know ourselves to be
the point upon which the world, both occidental and oriental, turns,
quietly smoking our cigarettes, and willing to allow others a part
of the pathway. Whereas an Englishman, when he goes abroad, walks
down other people’s streets as if he thought himself merciful in only
knocking the owners into the shade instead of crushing them.”

“Well, I can’t say I am for England either,” said Johannis, diving his
hands into the pockets of his blue cotton pantaloons. “I always thought
she was too fond of helping herself to parts of the globe which she had
no right to, and of battering others into submission. But it cannot be
denied that she is very rich and sufficiently attentive to the affairs
of Greece. London, I hear on first-class authority, is a wonderful
place. You know Marengo, the captain of the _Iris_, stayed there a
week; but he never once ventured out of the hotel alone, so frightened
was he by the noise and the people. He solemnly swears he saw fifty
trains steaming in and out of the station at the same time. It sounds
incredible, but Marengo is positive. He counted thirty, but his head
grew dizzy, though he saw he had only got through half the number. When
driving he had to keep his eyes and ears closed, expecting every minute
to be killed by the thousand cabs that whizzed round him as quick as
lightning. He could not understand how the people managed to cross the
streets, some of them a mile in width!”

“You may believe half of what Marengo says, Johannis,” cried
Demetrius, “he is an unconscionable liar. However, I have certainly
been assured that London is a largest kind of town, perhaps a little
more extensive than Athens, but then I never believe all I hear. I like
to judge things for myself. Not that I have seen Athens either; but
I believe it to be the finest city in the world. Why, was not Athens
founded long before London or Paris were heard of? Do not people come
every day from America to see it, and guardians have to be placed
about the Acropolis to prevent strangers robbing its stones or relics?
I would be glad if you could name a Greek who would go to London or
America for a relic!”

Demetrius looked as if he had sufficiently clinched the matter. If
travellers come to Greece for a purpose which certainly does not
inspire the Greeks to go to foreign parts, it clearly proves the
advantage on the side of Greece.

“True enough, Demetrius,” assented Michael, “and do we not know that
Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minister of England, is more anxious for
our safety than that of his own people? And he would gladly exchange
London for Athens to-morrow if he could, and mind you, he has seen both
places. If we go to war this year, depend upon it, Mr. Gladstone will
send us men enough to smash the Turks.”

“We will accept England’s aid when we need it,” said the village
Lothario, condescendingly, with a dramatic gesture, as he threw away
the end of his cigarette. “But we know very well that three hundred
Greeks are more than a match for ten thousand Turks, as they were for
the Persians in the olden days.”

Demetrius, you will perceive, was learned, and that was why he was
president of the clubs.

“Where are you going shooting to-morrow?” asked Johannis, who knew
nothing about the Persians, and resented their introduction with the
unreasonable jealousy and bigotry of ignorance.

“I am going to shoot round Koumara,” said Demetrius, testily.

“It’s poor shooting you’ll get there,” remarked Johannis. “I am going
to Mousoulou. I shot a lot of wild pigeons there last Sunday and bagged
larks and sparrows by the dozen.”

In the meantime, through a running fire of continual comment, and
under the gaze of every pair of eyes the village possessed, Reineke,
conducted by the cheerful and voluble Aristides, was led down the
torrent and round by the windmill upon the brow of the hill, to the
little postern gate which led into Selaka’s vineyard. He was so
exhausted that in dismounting he had to lean heavily upon Aristides,
and slowly walked up the sloping path to the gate. It was opened by
Annunziata, who flashed him a delightful smile of welcome, and at
that moment Selaka himself hastened forward, and shook him cordially
by the hand. But Reineke was too weak and fatigued to do more than
smile faintly, and murmur some unintelligible phrase, upon which he
was helped into the house, and there collapsed at once upon the sofa.
Here we will leave him in the sleep of complete exhaustion, feeling
shattered and bruised and as if a week’s sleep would be insufficient to
recuperate him.




CHAPTER XIV.

(_From Reineke’s Note Book._)

MUTE ELOQUENCE.


Contrary to my expectations, I awoke on the morning after my arrival
at Xinara refreshed, with only that sensation of fatigue in the limbs
that makes it delightful to lie perfectly still and revel in the luxury
of homespun and lavender-perfumed sheets. The bed was the softest I
ever slept on, the room the prettiest and freshest I ever wakened in.
Such light, such a cheerful display of linen as everywhere greeted my
eyes! In the garden, by the drawn blind, I could see Persian lilacs,
in which the birds had evidently built their nests, and down among the
trees of the orchards thousands of others seemed to have congregated.
The effect of their _aubade_ on this lovely winter morning was curious.
It began by a soft twitter, which gradually deepened its volume, until
it swelled upon mighty waves and beat frantically against the silver
gates of the morning in a shower of sound. It shook the closed shutters
like hail that lashes the earth outside. In the half haze of troubled
sleep, I imagined, at first, that the heavens had suddenly opened
in an unwonted downpour, but as soon as I was thoroughly awake, and
glanced upon the dim world which slowly unfolded beneath the light
of the breaking day, I understood and recognised the cause of this
patter against the panes. The increasing red of the east began to sweep
across the pallid sky, washed the lingering moon white, and enriched
the zenith with a dash of warm blue. I got up and opened the nearest
window, and then lay back to follow the movement of that impetuous
swell of music, sustained with exquisite orchestral harmony. The sound
seemed to travel round and round in a circle, continuously gathering
force, and then burst into a flood of song. An indistinguishable tumult
of wave with ever this strange, perpetual, circuitous movement, as if
all the birds of all the gardens and woods had met, and were whirling
round and round this spot of earth in some mad dance of wing. I think
I must have slept again, or perhaps I lay in an open-eyed dream for
some time. When I looked once more out of the window, I saw the bright
pleasant little woman, who had welcomed me the night before, walk
sturdily down the path that leads to the village, with her red water
jar placed on her shoulder, one muscular brown arm flung round her
head to support it. What a pleasure it was to watch her! She looked so
secure, so contented, so seriously active, and there was a light in
her eye which betrayed something more than cheerfulness,--a sense of
humour, and a kind of still laugh just traced the faintest sympathetic
line round the mouth. I supposed her to be the mother of that
intolerable youth who had led my mule last night, and who served me as
guide in my most memorable ride.

My restful solitude was broken by the entrance of Annunziata, carrying
a little tray with coffee, an inviting roll called Koulouria, and some
cigarettes. She placed it beside me, and then touched my hand softly,
and stood and smiled upon me with maternal benignity.

“You are rested, Kyrie?” she asked.

“Quite fresh, and ready for another ride,” I answered, laughing.

When I had partaken of this sober fare, she begged me to be still
awhile, and held a light and a cigarette for me. I am fond enough of a
recumbent attitude, and nothing loth, accepted the proffered sedative.
Then she trotted off with her inimitable air of sturdy serenity, and
hardly had she left me to my own contented thoughts when the door
opened, and in walked Aristides. Is it not unreasonable to dislike a
man, for no other reason than that his exterior and certain tricks
of manner revolt you? The fellow is really a decent fellow, but he
has a way of lifting the pressure of his lithe frame from one foot to
another, and of running his forefinger along his shapely nose, that
provokes me to the verge of exasperation. I watch for these tricks
with an unaccountable impatience, and when they come, I am invariably
harassed with the suppressed impetuosity of physical rage, and expect
before long to fling something at him. He entered the room with an
air of polished familiarity, took a chair, uninvited, as if he were
a prince of the blood whose condescension singularly honoured me,
and smiled in large affability and tolerance as he began to roll a
cigarette. After a pause he remarked casually, with a very apparent
desire to set me at ease:

“Vera nice counthry, Ingland, like vera much I do Ingleesh--large
place, I hear.”

I nodded, and patiently waited to learn why I should be attacked in
execrable English.

“I knew Ingleeshman in Smyrna. He vera nice man, touch vera well piano.
You touch piano?”

I admitted an innocent weakness that way, and continued to smoke
complacently, tickled by the humour of the situation.

“You are Ingleesh, sarr?”

“I have not that honour.”

“Ah, vous êtes Français?”

I failed to claim that great and much belauded nationality, whereupon
Aristides, indefatigable in the pursuit of knowledge, and anxious to
confound me with his linguistic skill, burst out radiantly:

“Sie sind Deutsch.”

“If you will condescend to speak your own language and spare me your
exasperating murder of Continental tongues, it may be of some slight
advantage to you and me,” I cried.

My unaccustomed violence in nowise discomposed him. He proved his
philosophic superiority by blandly smiling, as if to turn aside a wrath
he considered childish and inconsequent, rolled another cigarette,
leant forward, lit it, and observed, with an air of casual approval,
that it was a pleasing surprise to meet a foreigner who could speak
Greek. He then proceeded to question me with the savage candour and
curiosity of his race. He was eager to learn my income, its source,
the cost of the clothes I wore, if they were purchased in Paris or
in London, if I admired the Greeks and Greece, if I were married, or
disposed to marry a Greek, if my parents were alive, and how many
brothers and sisters I had. To those singular questions I replied
curtly, contemptuously resolved to see how far he would push his
indiscreet investigations. Then when I grew tired, I proceeded to
obtain a little information on my own account. From the communicative
Aristides I learned that the amiable doctor, who so wisely recommended
me the bosom of nature and innocence, is for inscrutable reasons
recognised as the King of Tenos, that he is a member of King George’s
Parliament, and by claim of obstruction unillumined by a rushlight of
intelligence or motive, is called the Parnell of Greece.

My host, it appears, is a more interesting character. His attitude
towards the moderns is that of unsparing contempt. He lives with the
ancients, and entertains a very lively horror of that superior people,
the French. His daughter is reputed to be a handsome and cultivated
young woman, to whose hand every unmarried male of the island aspires.
She has an exquisite name, Inarime. When I got rid of Aristides, I lay
back and conjectured a variety of visions of the owner of such a name.
In turn I dismissed from my mind the amiable maiden, the attractive
peasant girl, the chill statue and the haughty pedant, the Arab, the
Turk, the Italian of the Levant. Not one of these seemed to fit in with
my ideal of Inarime, and the thought that she had left Xinara before my
arrival fretted me strangely with a sense of baffled desire.

“Just an old pagan philosopher,” Aristides had said, speaking of
Selaka, “who keeps the handsomest girl of Tenos locked away from
everyone, as if a glance were a stain. He seems to regard her as a
goddess, and nobody here worthy to look upon her divinity. That is
why he sent her away before you came. He distrusts you and every other
Christian. Now, if you happened to be a Pagan, I have not the slightest
doubt he would be willing to marry you right off to Inarime.”

Why should this impertinent suggestion of Aristides have shot the blood
of anger and shame into my face? And yet it did, and the heat remained
after the fellow had left me to my own reflections. I do not think that
I am specially nervous or sensitive, but the shock of that idea touched
me with a force that made me shrink as from a prophecy. I dreaded to
meet Inarime, and almost resented her exile on my account. There may
be something flattering to our masculine vanity in the fact that a
beautiful girl has been sent into banishment on our account, but this
balsam did not heal a certain dull ache of dismay and resentment.

In this unreasonable mood Selaka found me. He inquired after my health
with measured courtliness, and suggested a variety of additions to my
comfort. I was dressed now, and reclining on a sofa. Without hesitation
I followed his advice to breathe the air of the terrace awhile. The
broad sunshine and the open-air serenity of the scene soothed and
calmed me, and I felt I could have been content to sit thus for hours
watching the flapping shadows of the windmills upon the sunny hills,
under the spell of the noon-day silence of nature. My host sat beside
me, the inevitable cigarette between his fingers, with a sharp but
kindly glance turned occasionally upon me. I imagine the question of
my nationality was perplexing him, and he was, perhaps, seeking an
occasion to elicit direct information from me on this point. But this
did not conceal from me that the normal expression of his fine dark
eyes showed the glow of an impersonal enthusiasm, doubtless lit by
his long devotion to the ancients. By reason of his rough-hewn and
unfinished features, he looked rather a simple good-natured peasant,
removed from the sordid conflict and merely animal sensations of
husbandry, than a learned pedagogue or an earth-removed philosopher; a
man fond of questioning the stars and his own soul, but not indifferent
to the delights of shepherd-life; capable of sparing a daisy and
stepping out of the way of a burdened ant, when he walked abroad with
Plato or Thucydides in his hand. It struck me that Inarime could be
no vulgar glittering jewel to be thus carefully shielded from the
irreverent gaze by this sage of Tenos.

“I think you cannot be French,” he said, at last.

“Reineke is a German name,” I answered, evasively, for it was not my
wish to court coldness by an avowal of my nationality.

“Ah, it is well. I do not like the French.”

“And yet your countrymen adore them,” I said, and laughed.

“So they do, so they do--to their sorrow and shame.”

“How can that be? Is France not admittedly the first nation of the
civilised world?” I exclaimed.

“That depends upon what is understood by civilisation. If you mean
humbug, vice, vanity and bluster, infamous plays and vaudevilles,
immoral literature generally, you may crown France with a triple crown
of shameless glory. But if you mean truth, good manners, purity, sense
and honourable restraint in all things, as the old world understood it,
then France is below all other countries to-day. It is because Greece
is so infatuated with France that I completely despair of her future.”

“It seems to me that you are charging an innocent country with the
vices of a depraved town. France is not Paris, and Paris is the sinner.”

“Paris! France! It is one. The country looks on complacently, and
approves the nameless follies of the city. It makes no effort to impede
her fatal career, and is not dismayed to see her, with her band of
lascivious poets and novelists, dance madly towards her doom, in the
degradation of decay, with a weak and dissolute smile on her worn lips.”

“Do you condemn all her writers?”

“Upon moral and artistic grounds I condemn all unreservedly. You are
one of those who, perhaps, call Victor Hugo great. I do not. ‘Words,
words, words,’ as Hamlet says, and nothing to come at them. Chip away
all the superfluous decorations and excrescences of ‘Notre Dame,’ and
measure it by the severe restrictions of Greek Art. You have twenty
pages, strengthened, purified, with only essential action and speech,
instead, of two long volumes of intolerable verbiage. No, sir; France’s
sentence has been pronounced. One day Germany will sweep her away,
with her vices and her graces, and they, I admit, are many. She is
in a debilitated and anæmic state, starting up in spasms of febrile
vitality, and the sooner her destiny is accomplished, the better for us
and all other such feebly imitative peoples. Have you stayed long in
Athens?”

“No, in fact I have seen nothing as yet of the town.”

“Ah, then you have yet to learn why I, and every true lover of Greece,
should hate the name of France. The men and women in Athens speak bad
Greek, though there is no reason why their speech should not be as
pure as Plutarch’s. Every one chatters in bad French, with what object
it would puzzle the Lord himself to discover. The women rave about
Ohnet, a vulgar writer whose style even I can know to be execrable.
Like the illustrious Hugo, the men read Zola, and are thereby much
improved. There are French vaudevilles and _cafés-chantants_; our
army is superintended by Frenchmen, who draw large salaries for the
privilege of laughing at us. Paris condescends to send our women its
cast-off fashions at enormously disproportionate prices. Athens is, in
fact, a small, dull, feeble Paris,--Paris in caricature, without the
fascination of its many-sided life.”

He stopped suddenly, half-ashamed and slightly flushed after his burst
of indignation. When we had smoked a cigarette apiece, I made careless
mention of his brother, and asked about his family. Constantine, he
told me, had long ago married a handsome Levantine who, after a few
months of conjugal discord, had attempted to shoot him, and then
betaken herself to Constantinople with a native of Syra. This disaster
had naturally tended to convince Constantine of the nothingness of
marriage, and he had since remained in single inconsolation. Pericles
himself had been blessed with a wife, picked up at Ischia, as lovely
in soul as in body, but here again was demonstrated the singular
fleetingness of wedded bliss. This pearl among wives melted away in the
crucial test of childbirth--and Selaka was left, bereaved and truly
forlorn, with a baby girl upon his hands.

Later on in the afternoon Selaka joined me, just as my senses were
lazily shaking themselves out of the thrall of siesta. He asked me if I
were interested in the study of ancient Greek, and upon my enthusiastic
affirmative, his face brightened and his manner immediately assumed a
cordiality and a pleasure that charmed me. He invited me to accompany
him in his walk through his orchard and vineyard; and truly a delight
it was to me to be brought face to face with a nature so simple and
a mind so exquisitely cultivated as his. Perhaps it would be thought
that such exclusive recognition of the past and such a profound and
unutterable contempt for the present were narrow and pedantic. That
it tended to lessen his interest in humanity cannot be denied. But
how very precious, from sincerity and undecorated speech, were the
thoughts to which he gave expression during our leisurely walk! Much as
I delighted, however, in the ancients, and deeply interesting as was
any discussion upon the old Greek writers, I could not get out of my
head the one word “Inarime.” I was haunted with the wish, nay, almost
the need, to hear something of her, and at last, after a pause in our
conversation, I hazarded the question:

“Is your daughter married?”

Selaka fixed me with a quick, suspicious glance, and said, coldly,

“My daughter is young; it will be time enough yet to think of marrying
her!”

“Then she does not live with you?” I persisted, with pardonable
indelicacy.

“She is at present staying with her aunt at Mousoulou,” said Selaka.

I ought to have let the subject drop upon these strong hints, but I
went on:

“I am told she is very beautiful.”

“You have been told the truth,” said Selaka.

I saw that further questioning would be indiscreet. However discursive
he might be upon the subject of the ancient Greeks, his reticence upon
the subject of Inarime was not to be shaken.

Thus passed my three first days in Xinara. Aristides invariably
wounded and offended me by his impertinent freedom and his still more
impertinent confidences. It appears Aristides is one of Inarime’s
admirers, and being promoted to the rank of chief muleteer to his
mistress, naturally regards himself as having scored above all his
rivals. The early morning was generally spent by me in exploring the
neighbouring hills alone. In the afternoon I accompanied Selaka round
his small estate. A tranquil, healthy existence it was, and under its
influences my late fever and languor left me. With recurrent health
I gained in vitality and spirits, and had I not been pursued by an
indefinable curiosity--a sense of baffled hope,--I should ere this have
been measuring my forces for a return to Athens.

       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

It was the fourth day since my arrival from Tenos, when I opened
the door of the bright sitting-room with the intention of passing
an hour or two among Selaka’s choice books. Looking out upon the
desolate Castor,--seeming the more desolate because of the cruel
joy of the sunshine that so ruthlessly exposed its empty flanks, my
ear was attracted by the sound of hysterical sobbing and half-angry
expostulation, that came from the courtyard through the opposite open
window. I walked across the room, wondering what could have happened
to disturb the active serenity of Annunziata. My eyes fell upon a
village woman, whose withered, sunburnt face was lifted in tearful
prayer to another, who sat with her back to me, leaning over a little
table. There was something exquisitely youthful and gracious in the
attitude,--of majestic youth in the line of the figure clad, as I could
see, in some dark yellow stuff. But the small head was completely
hidden in a muslin kerchief of spotless white, with a Turkish border of
yellow and crimson.

There was a restraint and firmness--an unconscious grace in the pose,
and I felt my pulses quicken with eagerness to see the face. Could this
be a young judge measuring awful depths of iniquity in a criminal? A
cold Diana reproving undue tenderness, a wise Athena rebuking folly? I
listened. The villager’s brogue and voluble utterances were difficult
to follow. But I gathered that there was question of a letter that had
been written, and that the dictator’s mind had altered, and that she
now wanted one written in an entirely different spirit.

“I am so sorry, Kyria. He will never come back to me if he gets that
letter, and what does anything matter to me as long as he remains
away? Tell him that I am not angry with him; that I will bear anything
rather than that he should not come back to me. If he would only leave
her and come away from Smyrna! Tell him anything, young lady, that will
touch him,--I am so lonely, so weary of waiting for him!” I heard the
woman say.

“But, my poor woman, what proof have I that, if I rewrite the letter
in this new mood, you will not be sorry for the leniency in another
hour, and implore me to write an angrier letter for you?” The voice
was clear and soft, with a curious throat sound that somehow carried
with it the idea of velvet. Something in it seemed to draw me with an
ache of desire to see the speaker. I acted upon an unaccountable and
irresistible impulse. It compelled me in a kind of dreamy expectation
down the marble steps, and, standing with my hand upon the top of the
pillar, close to her, my intense gaze was an equal compulsion to her.

She moved her head round slowly, and our eyes met. Was it the shock
of recognition, the awful bliss of surprised surrender, the force of
revelation, undreamed, unawaited, yet not the less complete because of
its suddenness, that held our glances in a steady dismay?

I laid down my arms at once happy, contented, prone, in a sacred
servitude; but she, I could divine, with the delicate instinct of
maidenhood, strove to struggle and release her soul. But no effort of
even her imperious will could move her eyes from mine, upon which they
rested in the mute eloquence of dazzled entreaty, shining as if they
were filled with light. And then slowly their golden hue faded into a
wistful brown, and slowly, grudgingly drooped their lids,--and mine, as
if by instinct, dropped. It was only afterwards that I could remember
the glory of her resplendent youth, and dwell upon the flash of her
great beauty.

She laid her hand upon the head of the kneeling, sobbing woman, and
said:

“I cannot write your letter to-day, Katinko, but come to me at
Mousoulou,” and then turning, looked at me again, this time with
less trouble and dismay through the unfathomable tenderness of her
gaze,--looked at me steadily, commandingly, unconsciously reminding me
that she was sovereign lady, and that not one inch of her sovereignty
would she forego for me. I humbly accepted the dismissal of her eyes,
without a word of protest or prayer, though the pulses of my body
rang with frantic urgence for both. I stood to let her pass me, and
was strong enough to resist the temptation to touch her hand as a
suppliant might, to prostrate myself before her as a servant. But no;
our attitude must be that of equals, something told me. If she be queen
then must I be king; sovereign, too. Not servant, Inarime. King of you,
as you, beloved, are henceforth queen of me!

I went to my room and tried to think. But thought was vain as action--I
could only feel. Feel that I had seen Inarime; that my soul had touched
hers; that there was henceforth no life apart for either of us. While
I sat thus, dismantled of reality, and full of an overpowering joy,
I heard the harsh voice of Aristides checking the impetuosity of his
mule, and the words “Kyria” and “Mousoulou” caught my wandering
attention.

I drew near to the window in a thrill of alarm. Inarime was seated on
the mule, with no other shelter from the beating sunbeams than the
white kerchief bound round her head. A strong impulse swept through me
to forbid this departure, to cry out passionately against the injustice
of flight and desertion. But this folly would but imperil my position.
What right had I to usurp authority and claim upon the surprised
declaration of her eloquent eyes? And there came upon me a sense of the
perfect tact of her action, its true fitness in accord with the dignity
of her sex. Pursuit was for me,--not flight, but a delicate, cold
aloofness was hers by divine privilege. Not other would I have her than
sensitively alive to the gracelessness of serene and easy conquest. And
I was not hurt, was I, by this withdrawal from the new light of day,
for her will must ever now be my own.




CHAPTER XV.

(_From Reineke’s Note Book._)

A SILENT BETROTHAL.


When I joined Selaka in his afternoon stroll, he appeared to notice
something different in my step and in my eyes. I felt myself as if I
sprang rather than walked, and my glance saw nothing distinctly that
it rested upon: it was impeded and clouded by the intense illumination
from within. Yet never before did the bare, sunny hills look to me more
lovely; never did the Greek isles, rising above their happy waters like
rose and mauve clouds upon a blue sky, seem more dreamily enchanting.
I remember nothing of our conversation. I walked beside the old man,
drunk with my own speechless bliss, and answered his questions at
random. And all the while my soul sang aloud its pæan, and the whole
earth seemed to smile upon me out of one girl’s grave luminous gaze.
Inarime! It seemed to me that the sweet air trembled with the shaking
impulses of my intemperate gladness.

Two days passed thus. Blind and absent as I was, I could remark the
sullen suspicion of Aristides’ manner, no longer vexing with its
impertinent familiarity, but repulsing me with insolent sullenness. I
paid no heed to this childishness. But I was struck with the fellow’s
extraordinary penetration. Whence could he have divined there was
aught in me to fear or distrust? There was something of the extreme
fineness and subtlety of the animal instinct in his intuition, which
completely eluded my observation. But Annunziata simply attributed
my restored strength and serene joy to the notoriously beneficial
influences of mountain air. She always greeted me with her cordial
smile, and sometimes ventured to pat my hand in a motherly way. I
delighted in her noiseless activity, and in her sturdy self-reliance.
Tears for self I should imagine had never dimmed her bright black eyes,
and the lines time had traced upon her brown forehead were not lines of
pain and mental travail, but the marks of healthy, contented labour.
It was a lesson to watch her carry her water jar from the village
fountain, or lay the table, without hurry or anxiety, with the perfect
ease of punctuality and order. Selaka, I felt, was studying me, half in
perplexity, half in alarm, yet with increasing approval. He liked me,
and with the days grew his cautious esteem into precipitate affection.

On the third day from my meeting with Inarime, he joined me in the
early morning, as I sat upon the terrace, smoking and revelling in the
lovely air. My heart could no longer bear this silence and separation,
and my tongue at last resolved to give utterance to its urgent claim.

“Will your daughter remain much longer at Mousoulou?” I asked,
conscious that my voice was unsteady from eagerness.

“I have not yet decided,” said Selaka quietly.

“Kyrie Selaka, I have a favor to ask you--the very greatest one man can
ask another.”

I looked round into his face as I spoke, and knew I was pale to the
lips.

“You wish to see my daughter,” said Selaka gravely.

“Nay, I have seen her. I want you to take me to her.”

The old man sat for awhile motionless as a statue, then he rose, and
paced the terrace in severe and anxious reflection.

After a pause, that seemed to me interminable, he stopped in front of
me, and looked in silence into my eyes. He shook back his head, as if
he had come to a supreme decision, placed one hand on my shoulder, and
held his beard with the other.

“Why not?” he asked, and then sat down beside me.

“That is not worthily said, Kyrie Selaka,” I could not help exclaiming,
reproachfully.

“I see. You think I should ask ‘why’ rather than ‘why not,’” said
Selaka, smiling softly. “And you are right; it is ‘why?’”

“Why?” I cried, impetuously, “because I love her, because I am hers,
and she, I know, is mine.”

“Gently, my son, gently,” he interposed, laying his hand soothingly
upon mine. “It seems to me that for a German you possess a pretty
lively and reckless temperament. That having looked upon my daughter,
her beauty should fire your young blood with romantic aspirations, is
but natural. That you should ardently wish to see her again, is as it
should be. But that you should hurl yourself with desperate passion
into this rash and unconsidered decision that you are hers and Inarime
is yours--my son, my son, it is not thus that I desire Inarime should
be loved. From stormy scenes and the tempestuous fluctuations of
passion would I jealously guard her, as from other noxious influences.
The state of romantic love I regard, in common with all serious
thinkers, as the very worst and most degraded state of bondage into
which man can fall. It is equally unreasonable in its sickening
depressions and in its passionate anticipations. I can see that it is
only fruitful in cruelty, in folly, in stupidity, in crime and reckless
blunders. Its miseries are immeasurable, and grievously restricted is
its circle of joys.”

“But surely, sir, it was with this kind of romantic love that you loved
your wife, Inarime’s mother,” I retorted.

“It was not so, my son. I loved her with the priceless affection
that is based upon tranquil knowledge, upon spiritual affinity and
inalterable esteem. Had the Gods left her to me, very jealously would
I have sought to preserve her from the wintry winds of sorrow and
poverty, and harsh experiences. Dear to me was she, as a complete
blessing, and profound was my grief when she was taken from me. But I
did not pursue her with the unthinking ardour of a burning desire, nor
was my soul consumed in its fires. I saw that she was good and serene,
and her beauty was an added charm. I sought her in the noontide of
life, as one seeks shade in the noontide of day.”

“But, sir, I beseech you, do not judge us all by this high and inhuman
ideal. We cannot all be sages. The passions will speak with terrible
insistence in youth, however heavy a chain of habit and restraint
may encompass them, and I cannot think there is aught unworthy or
degrading in their petulant voice. We love not the less nobly and
purely because passion is the font from which our love springs. If
it prompts imperious exactions, may it not be that it urges sublime
devotions? Man has nobly died for the sake of that romantic love you
condemn, and what sacrifice can be finer than a woman’s surrender to
it?”

“There should be neither sacrifice nor death. Reasonable beings should
strive to meet and fulfil the decrees of destiny, in measure and calm
acceptance of the laws of nature; not upon any violent urgence of the
emotions, allow themselves to be swept away and precipitated into
depths like powerless leaves whipped by the blast.”

“But if I recognise the decree of destiny that commands me to love
Inarime, must I not obey it?”

“Be temperate; that is all I ask of you. Be just, too, and as little
foolish and indiscreet as it is possible for a young man so blinded as
you are,” said Selaka, and I thought he did not look extremely offended
or discomposed by my impulsiveness.

“And when will you consent to put my discretion and my wisdom to the
proof?” I persisted.

“To-morrow morning we will go to Mousoulou.”

To-morrow, Inarime, to-morrow! That was all I could think of as I sat
and counted the hours, and my heart now sank within me in the complete
prostration of yearning, and then rose to intoxicating heights upon
the splendid wings of promise. I walked up and down the terrace all
night, and watched the stars, as glorious and varied as the hopes that
sprang and wavered and clamoured around me. Oh, the stillness, the
soft yet sharp enchantment of a night-watch upon an Ægean island! The
distant murmur of the restless sea breaks the silence of the land, and
the shadowy hills fall into the dense veil of the valleys. The charm
enters the soul like a pang, and it works upon the quickened senses
with the subtle mingling of exasperation, of poignant and tranquil
feelings. I felt chill as the twilight crept slowly over the night,
and the stars began to pale and drop, one by one, out of the dim sky,
like extinguished lamps, tracing a faint milky-way where their blue
and golden illumination had been. Then quickly shot into the eastern
horizon an arch of blood-red cloud, and showed the sea silver beneath
it, and over this scarlet bridge appeared the sun, like a ball of
living light ready to explode upon the pallid scene. And then the birds
of the orchard began their piercing harmonies, and the wide spears of
the grasses glistened with their crystal gathering of the night-dews.
Day had come; my day, Inarime, and yours.

Contact with cold water did duty for sleep. I felt quite refreshed when
I entered the little sitting-room where the coffee and Koulouria were
served.

“You are early,” said Selaka, greeting me with an intangible smile,
“and yet I am not wrong in believing you were walking on the terrace
long after every one had gone to bed.”

I nodded, and drank my coffee as if it were nectar. I almost choked
myself in my eagerness to dispatch my Koulouria, and hugely pleased
Annunziata by begging another cup of her excellent coffee. One has not
just recovered from a fever and held a tryst with the stars without
serious result to one’s appetite.

After breakfast, under a delicately-clouded sky, we rode through
the episcopal village of Xinara, this time, to my satisfaction,
unaccompanied by Aristides. The narrowness of the passage compelled
us to ride in single file until we had passed the bishop’s palace and
all the gardens and pigeon-holed hamlets with their bright terraces
and flowers. We turned up off the path round the great Castro, which,
near, looks even more impressive than afar, burnt red and brown with
the sun and rain, the wild thyme making a purple and scented haze upon
its enormous flanks. Skirting the ruins of Borgo, all the valleys and
vine plantations and orchards, girdled with hill beyond hill, burst
upon our view in a magnificent panorama. Everywhere the sharp contrast
of silver, olive and blue sea, and beneath us a vein of humid light
flashed and twisted itself like quicksilver through the plain, until a
bar of rocks broke it into an impetuous descent of foam. Silence lay
upon the land, and alternately soft and glowing colours were swept
across the empty hills by the wind-pursued clouds and the variations
of sun-fire. Here and there little petulant torrents dashed noisily
down the precipices, to twine themselves in the valleys and resume
their wild course, wherever the rocks rose and shot them into frothy
music. As we rode through each village, the curs came out, and stood
near a group of pigs to examine us with a depressed and listless air,
or bark at us from the ledge of a rock in a half-hearted way. Children
with matted hair and glances of dull curiosity, surveyed us gravely,
and whispered their opinions, and the villagers stared at us with
inconvenient candour and solemnity. As we neared Mousoulou, a fine
mist began to fall from the upper peaks, like a thin veil gradually
thickening until it enveloped the landscape in a grey pall. I enjoyed
the prospects of damp mountain scenery, but I could see that Selaka,
like all Greeks, was made unhappy and nervous by it.

We reached Mousoulou drenched. A lover may be permitted to shrink
from presenting the front of a water-dog to his mistress, and I was
keenly relieved to learn that Inarime and her aunt were out when we
arrived. An old woman welcomed us, and offered Selaka one sofa of
honour and me another. We were administered a glass of cognac, then
Selaka left me to listen to the wind howling furiously against the
windows, bending the heads of the flowers on the terrace, and freezing
my feet as it blew in under the chinks of the five doors that opened
off the room. Undeterred by the rain, the villagers came in batches
to inspect the stranger--men, women and children. It was a kind of
theatrical entertainment for them, with the agreeable merit of being
free of charge, and they availed themselves of the occasion with great
good-will. The delighted old woman stayed and did the honours of the
spectacle, explained me and appraised me with refreshing candour, and
after a burst of exclamations, they all stood round perfectly calm, a
row of offensive statues.

Can any reader, not experienced, possibly conjecture the nameless
irritation of thus being silently, mercilessly stared at, and what
black thoughts of murder may rush through the excited brain under it?
I think not. When at last I had reached the white-heat of exasperation
under this awful Greek gaze, I rose and turned my back on my
tormentors.

The landscape was now folded in a grey mist, broken by the lines of the
walls, the spires and perforated belfries. Out of this grey picture
showed patches of brown earth and dark rock below the draped head of
Mount Elias, and the trees looked like ghosts. The sky was a field
of colourless cloud, and the flower-heads on the terrace pierced the
opaline vapour with eyes of brilliant reproach. On a distant hill-curve
a group of animals were shivering, and near by the raindrops made big
pools upon the marble pavement. And soon the grey grew to opaque white,
and rushed from the brow of Mount Elias like a swift cloud blotting out
the meadows and valleys. Where was the glory of the morning? And where
was the warmth of my heart?

“Do you know, sir, that I am inclined to think that I have been quite
long enough on view?” I cried, when Selaka returned.

Selaka smiled, and I burst into an irritable laugh, which seemed to
impress the audience in the light of a new act. They pressed nearer,
and broke into inarticulate sounds of wonder and grave approval.
I thought they meditated a general embrace, but they contented
themselves with keeping the air from me, poisoning the atmosphere, and
expectorating profusely.

“Don’t you think, sir, that it would be possible to hint politely that
the entertainment is over?” I piteously implored.

Upon a word and gesture of authority, the audience straggled out,
and doubtless held a parliament elsewhere to discuss the remarkable
phenomenon.

“Surely your daughter is not out in this rain?” I asked, as soon as we
were left to ourselves.

“No, she is sheltering in Steni. She accompanied her aunt on a visit to
a sick woman.”

I looked round the large nude room, so chill and cheerless after
Selaka’s pretty sitting-room. The floor was marked with the wet clogs
of the recent explorers, and small rivers traversed it, flowing from
our umbrellas. The beams of the ceiling were supported by white arches,
and vulgar Italian pictures hung upon the whitewashed walls. It was the
dreariest place possible in which to await one’s beloved, and then the
sense of dampness, the deafening patter of rain against the windows,
the wind roaring and rising in frantic gusts, and earth and sky one
inextricable sea of grey! Most utterly wretched did I feel. I had much
to do to keep the tears of acute disappointment from my eyes, and
depression settled upon me as heavy as the impenetrable vapours outside.

The noonday dinner was served, and like a philosopher Selaka enjoyed
the vermicelli soup, the pilau, and dish of larks stewed in tomatoes.
I ate, too, mechanically, with my glance and ear strained in feverish
intensity for the slightest premonition of Inarime’s return. And as we
sat drinking our coffee I could see with rapture that the colourless
mist was rolling rapidly off the earth, and above, delicately-tinted
clouds were beginning to show themselves upon the slate ground. The
sun peeped out through a blurred and ragged veil, and looked as if he
intended to dry the deluged world, and pale gold streaked the jagged
banks of red and yellow haze. Down the village street came the sound
of hoofed feet, and Selaka rushed forward.

I went and stood at a window, and made a screen of the curtain. Selaka
had promised, upon my insistent prayer, to leave me but one moment
alone with Inarime before introducing me to her aunt. I saw a tall
massive woman, wrapped in a blue cloak, enter, and deposit her wet
umbrella in an opposite corner with maddening slowness. I glanced
behind her, and here stood Inarime enveloped in some brown garment with
a knot of red ribbon at her throat. She wore a red hood, and the moist
air and quick ride had left the glow of a pomegranate flower upon her
cheek. She stood in the middle of the room, and looked grave inquiry at
her father. He nodded reassuringly, told her to wait for him there, and
took his sister’s arm to lead her into the inner room.

I came out of my hiding-place. There was something so solemn, so
ineffable in the moment, that I rejected all speech as inadequate. I
simply stood there looking at Inarime as I have never yet looked at any
woman, and then I said:--“Inarime!”

I held out both hands. She turned, and without making any movement
towards me looked at me. Again her eyes gave me the impression of
eyes that are dazzled with light. They were clear as amber, crystal
as her soul, and held mine in willing bondage. Before then my pulses
had throbbed with expectation and hope; now they were quieted, numbed
almost by sheer intensity of feeling in the trace of gazing silence.

“Inarime!” I said again, and this time my voice dropped to a whisper.

Unconsciously she seemed drawn to me, and while our hands met and
clasped, our eyes dwelt on each other in grave delight.

“You have not spoken to me, Inarime,” I said.

“Who are you?” she asked, as a wondering child might.

“Has your heart not told you, Inarime?”

Something like fear and humble pleading strove with the mastery of her
proud restrained expression. It was so new and perilous to her, that
she hardly knew to what she might not have silently pledged herself.
She hastily withdrew her hands, but still her eyes rested on mine and
sought solution in their depths.

“Oh, I am afraid,” she murmured, and a wave of intangible pain swept
over her strong face.

“Not of me, Inarime; not of me,” I entreated, and drew near to gather
her hands again.

Before either of us could realise or stay the volcanic influences that
impelled us in an irresistible shock, my arms were round her and our
lips were one.

       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

Here Reineke’s note book, of which I was glad to avail myself, grows
too incoherent and impassioned for further use. The author will try to
tell the rest of his story.




CHAPTER XVI.

A REVELATION.


It was unknown, as regards time, to Reineke and Inarime whether
minutes or hours had passed before Selaka and his sister rejoined
them. The massive woman looked sharply at Gustav, then nodded to her
brother in emphatic approval. A keen and not unkindly glance took in
the situation, and it was possible she liked Reineke all the more for
the tell-tale colour that mounted to his cheeks under her searching
inspection.

“Now, my children,” said Selaka, with as near an approach to the
ordinary gesture of rubbing the hands as a man so wedded to the customs
and restraint of the ancients could display. Here was a son-in-law,
if you will, not a popinjay from Athens, not a superficial European,
not a gross Teniote; but a man who was accustomed to deep draughts
from the old founts of learning! Whose youth still ran fire through
his veins, while the beauty of his face was enhanced by a delicate
suggestion of strength and burning life! Yes, Selaka was thoroughly
pleased with Gustav, and, in spite of his philosophic condemnation of
the impetuosities and frenzied purposes of an age he had long since
passed, something within him thrilled to their memoried delights. Upon
reflection, he would perhaps have viewed less enthusiastically the
love of a saner and older man for Inarime; and there might be moments
of sceptical acknowledgment of the sage reticence and colder blood
of the other different son-in-law he had dreamed of. There remained
nothing now to be discovered but the pecuniary circumstances of
Reineke, and some slight knowledge of his parentage. He looked very
unlike a German, but German blood might be crossed as well as any
other. Inarime had escaped, and Reineke stood rivetted to the very spot
she had left with a dazed look on his face as if he felt rather than
saw. He was awakened from the dreamy sensations that enveloped him by
the touch of Kyria Helene’s hand.

“Pericles tells me that you have come to take Inarime from us,” said
she, and then nodded reassuringly to him, as if she thought it on the
whole an extremely reasonable intention on his part.

“I am glad you think me worthy,” said Gustav, with a foolish lover’s
smile.

“Oh, for that I don’t know; you may and you may not be. Young people
must take their chance; it’s for them to choose, and for them to
decide. You are comfortably off, I hope?”

“Comfortably off!” burst out Gustav in radiant incoherence, “you ask a
man to whom the gates of Paradise have been opened if he is comfortably
off? I pray you, do not speak to me about it; settle everything as you
will, only leave me to my thoughts and my happiness.”

This might suit a lover, but could hardly be expected to suit the young
lady’s guardians.

“That is very well, but I refer to your means of support. Are you in a
position to maintain a wife?” asked the practical Kyria Helene.

“I do not know,” said Gustav; “I am accounted a rich man.”

“But do your people live in Germany?” she proceeded, catechising him
severely.

And then came the one great difficulty in Gustav’s path. Oh, if he
could have abjured his nationality, gladly then would he have done so.
A Turk, and to confess that to these Greeks!--It seemed a horrible
risk. Gathering all his energies together, he shook back his head
defiantly, and rather gasped than said:

“No, my people do not live in Germany. I am not a German. I am a Turk.”

“A Turk!” cried the woman, and held up her hands in dismay and
repulsion.

To Selaka no word was possible; for him the Turk was the symbol of
all that is most hateful in his country’s past. He stood transfixed,
staring at the young man whom a moment ago he had been prepared to take
to his heart, and to whom he had so readily consigned the one treasure
of his existence. No, that was not possible. Inarime wed a Turk! It
did not seem to him that worse degradation could be for a daughter of
free Greece! Despite his contempt of the present, his patriotic pride
was very fierce and unbending. He took a step nearer to Gustav, who was
looking at him now not defiantly but imploringly, and said:

“There is surely some mistake. Perhaps you mean that you have been born
in Turkey. But your name is surely German?”

“No, my name is not German, I merely adopted a German name in coming
to Greece so that I might not wound national susceptibilities, and
bring upon myself unnecessary coldness. My name is Daoud Bey. Kyria
Selaka, what difference can this make? I love not Inarime the less
because my people once oppressed yours. I am not responsible for the
blunders of generations. You do not surely imagine that I am less
likely to cherish and reverence your daughter than one of her own
countrymen? Rather do I believe that the very fact of the past wrongs
that her race endured at the hands of mine will add to my solemn charge
on the day she entrusts herself to my care. That it shall not be for
her grief you may believe, for I love her. Besides, you must think of
Inarime, if even you refuse to think of me. For now she is mine, and
nothing in regard to my nationality or race can alter that fact. You
must accept it.”

“I do not accept it,” said Selaka, “my daughter will not marry a Turk.
I have said it.” Words of reproach for the lateness of the avowal were
on his lips but he repressed the natural retort “you have deceived me.”

“Is this your decision?” asked Gustav, growing chill with fright.

“It is my decision.”

“Then I will only abide by the voice of Inarime. If she bids me go, I
will go even without her, but not otherwise. You may be her father,
but I am her lover. You have the claim of long years of devoted care
and affection, and I have but the claim of a moment of transcendent
passion. But, sir, your claim weighed with mine would prove but a
feather as opposed to the barque of love on the waters of destiny!”

“No, I think not,” said Selaka. “Inarime will see your race in her
lover, and she will not take your name, whatever the effort of parting
may cost her.”

“Kyrie Selaka,” cried Gustav, with frantic urgency, “I have but one
request to make you, and you must grant it. Not one word of this will
be uttered to Inarime; she will only hear from my lips of that which
you regard as an impassable barrier to our union.”

Selaka shot a swift inquiry in the direction of his sister.

“I think,” said Helen, “we may accede to this demand. It is reasonable,
and it does the young man credit that he should urge it.”

Gustav looked his humble gratitude, and then went out on the terrace,
which was nearly dry after the recent deluge. The wet leaves gleamed
under their clear burden, while the damp air brought out all the
exquisite odours of hillside and valley. Gustav could have almost
laughed aloud in the surety of triumph. What could it matter to him the
decision of two cold-blooded old people, who perhaps never knew the
mighty force of love, or, having known it, had completely forgotten
it? _He_ allow himself to be calmly divorced from his mate, and sit
down tamely upon the sudden ruins of his life! Such mad acceptance
of the control of others might be befitting a phlegmatic Teuton, but
it was quite incompatible with the fire of an Oriental. And, then,
Inarime could not forsake him; and this theory of race antagonism
would be shivered on the first word of his that should fall on her
ears. It would mean only a little delay; some indecision, and perhaps
some tears; and then for them success lay ahead. Oh, why does nature
give youth its volcanic impulse and its ardent impetuosity! Strife,
struggle, delay! These but gave an added impetus to his passion.

Flaming clouds shot from the west, heralds to proclaim the sun’s
departure in one burst of splendour. They touched the plane and
pepper-trees with light, and spurred the lagging birds into song. A
breeze, like a sigh after protracted sobbing, swept from the east,
and met the moist earth with a throb of promise. It brushed past over
Reineke’s hot cheek, and fanned his thrilled senses into exultation.
A silent shout of defiance from the invisible host that march in the
wake of triumphant love went up, and Reineke felt his heart impervious
to doubt. He heard a step, a light, quick step that he should have
recognised in a thousand, and it lashed him with insufferable force.

“Inarime! stay! One moment, beloved,” he cried, in a voice of prayer.

That prayer was her command. She stood still, but did not dare advance
lest answering passion should fling her in transport into his arms.

They stood thus, trifling with the eternal moments, their aching
glances rivetted as under the spell of enchantment. Then he moved
towards her, and her hands met his in silence.

“You are mine, Inarime,” he said, in a whisper. “Nothing now can alter
that.”

“Nothing.”

It was hardly speech. Her lips moved, but it was her eyes that spoke.

“Say it aloud, beloved, that all may hear it, and know that you
promised,--the earth, the trees, the birds and the departing sun.
Aloud! Aloud!”

“I am afraid! Can I know? Who are you? Tell me, tell me.”

She retreated, but held him with the bewildering tenderness of her
glance.

“Your lover! Lord of you, my lady. Inarime, your husband.”

“I love you,” she cried, and covered her face with her hands.

“My own! Your eyes spoke first. I knew it. Nothing shall part us. Say
you believe it.”

“I cannot; but I love you.”

He drew nearer, and his dark, impassioned gaze flamed fire into hers.
His breath was on her hair, and he held her hand to his lips.

“Oh, my beloved, thou art the eye of my soul, the voice of my heart,”
he burst out, incoherently. At that moment of high-wrought sensation
and terrible sincerity, he could no more hold Eastern metaphor in
abeyance than he could bid his gaze close upon the light it avidly
drank--as sun-drained flowers drink dew. The restraints of European
customs and education were broken and overtopped by the strong heat of
passion, and wild words gushed upon its wave.

“Inarime, Inarime, thy slim fingers are the rivets that bind my willing
feet to high service. Command me! Anything, I pray, but silence and
averted looks. Withhold me not thy promise.”

“I cannot,” she said again, startled by his outburst.

“Nay, thou art offended. Oh! blind me not with thy anger, Inarime.
But as thou wilt. Thy anger will I bear rather than that thou shouldst
leave me. O fair one, O desired of my life! Thy kiss upon my eyelids
shall be as the dawn of my Paradise. Be to me, sweet, as an angel
of morning. Lift the gloom and fever of unsatisfied longing from
my heart. Be to me as the sun, moon, and stars to this earth of
ours--light, life, warmth, and colour. I grow chill with the fear of
thy unwillingness, Inarime. Worse than perpetual deafness were to my
ear thy ‘nay.’ But ‘nay’ it cannot be, beloved. Thou lovest me. The
light has shown it in thy eyes. My voice has revealed it on thy face.
Mine art thou, O Inarime, and by our love must thou abide.”

“Can I promise, not knowing? But I love you,” she cried, and her voice
rose in passionate protest, as though she felt the blood of feeling
rise within her like a mighty sea and encompass her to her doom.

They looked at each other an instant gravely--a look of immeasurable
love! And while the flaming heralds were ebbing back into the sea,
and the sunken sun followed them through a bed of crimson and orange,
drawing a purple pall over his vacated place, these two were locked in
each other’s arms. Hush, foolish birds! There is no song of yours sweet
enough to pierce their ears. The harmonies of love have swelled upon
the silence, and its song is measured by their heart-beats.

Inside, two others were holding sharp counsel over the destiny of this
miserable privileged pair.

“Can nothing satisfactory be settled, Pericles?” asked Helene.

“Certainly. He goes,” retorted her brother, bringing down his upper lip
shortly upon this unpleasant decision.

“But he is rich, Pericles. Be a sane father for once in your life. A
rich man! _Panaghia mou!_ You are an idiot.”

“He is a Turk.”

“Oh, a Turk! Never fear, I will keep a careful eye upon him. With me
there will be no danger. He will neither desert Inarime, nor outrage
her with other wives.”

“I have not thought of that,” said Pericles, reflectively.

“_Dystychia mou!_ that is the only thing to be feared in wedding a
Turk,” remarked the practical Kyria Helene.

“It is a side-issue, important, I admit, but below the main barrier. I
had forgotten, however, that the sentimental and impersonal side would
be the one least likely to touch you, Helene.”

“Sentiment and impersonality won’t find your daughter a suitable match,
I can assure you,” said Helene, wisely.

“True enough. But you are ever there, my sister, to shunt the train on
to the proper line when you detect a tendency to divagation.”

He smiled sadly as he spoke, for his heart was torn with the torture of
the coming severity for those tender young people outside. He heard the
ardent murmur of Reineke’s voice, and his eyes filled with tears. But
he knew that there were no words the lover could utter that would make
him abandon his first decision. That Inarime would seek to shake his
resolution he had no fear. Was she not Greek of the very Greek?

“Well, and what are you going to do, Pericles?”

“Inarime will stay here with you, and he will return with me to Xinara
at once. Tell your servant to call for the mules. Ten minutes more will
I give them, and then their parting is irrevocable.”

“But if Inarime loves this young man? He says she does.”

“Trust her to me. It will be a wrench, but she will get over it. I will
take her to Athens, and through the Peloponnesus. New scenes will heal
the ache of a young heart.”

Meanwhile, the two outside had dropped from the pinnacle of hardly
conscious bliss. She knew his name now, and was standing with one
hand stretched across his breast and resting upon his shoulder, and
their speech was a happy murmur. No thought of separation here. A life
together was what they were speaking of when Selaka interrupted them.

“My children, it is time to part,” he said.

“To part!” cried Inarime. “Then I am not to return to Xinara to-night
with you--and him?”

“You are to stay here, and he is to go. Have you not told her?” he
demanded sternly of Reineke.

“Nay, sir, consider. Had I time? Can I tell her?” Gustav pleaded, with
a broken voice.

Inarime looked from one to the other. In the dusk the light in her
lover’s eyes seemed to baffle her searching gaze, and she approached
her father a step, her glance still wedded to Gustav’s.

“What is there to tell me?” she commanded of both.

“He is a Turk, my daughter. There can be nothing between you,” said
Selaka, sadly.

“Oh, father! That may not be. I love him, his lips have sealed my
promise upon mine. I cannot now take back that which I have given. You
do not forsake me?” she cried, turning to Gustav, in an impulse of
childish yearning.

“I! Inarime!”

His throat rose and choked further speech. He held out his arms, and
her head sought protection on his breast.

“Inarime, are you not shamed? Leave that man’s embrace. What! do you
not see in him the long years of servitude and degradation under which
your country groaned? Are you less proud, less worthy of your glorious
ancestors than the Greek woman who flung herself and her babes from a
rock into the engulfing sea rather than yield to Turkish embraces? Does
Hellenic blood run so sluggishly in your veins that revolt does not cry
for shame? Come to me, my daughter. That man and you must part.”

“Have pity, sir, I beg you,” almost shouted Gustav, lifting up his
head, which had been bent upon the girl’s, and still holding her form
closely to him. “Is there no eloquence in her tears? Can I say naught
to shake your harsh resolve?”

“Naught. Young tears are soon dried. Inarime!”

She lifted her head from Gustav’s breast, and held her throat to keep
back the fierce sobs that shook her.

“Father,” she said, “have I ever disobeyed you? Have I ever once
deliberately thwarted or offended you?”

“Never, my beloved child, never. To me you have been a reward and a
support.”

“Then, father, by that past unblotted by tear or wrangle, by the memory
of my mother, by your own vanished youth, I beseech you, spare me! I
love him, father, leave him to me,” she cried.

Her hands were in Gustav’s, and her praying eyes pierced the heart of
Selaka.

“My child, you know not what you ask. I tell you, the man is a Turk. It
is mad, it is base of you to be willing to give yourself to him. Do not
force me to renounce you.”

She dropped Gustav’s hands, and her face was blanched in a transport of
pain.

“Oh, father, blame me not. Your voice has never yet been harsh to me.
I am young. Show me some pity. Think what it is, on the threshold of
life, to be asked to relinquish life’s best happiness. Plead with
me--you,” she urged Gustav, her brows drawn in one line of repressed
anguish.

“Sir, is there any sacrifice you will be satisfied with as a proof that
for her sake I must utterly renounce my nationality? If I adopt Greece
as my home, and your name instead of mine? Inarime is my life, my
world, my future,” cried Gustav.

“You are a Turk. You cannot undo or alter that fact.”

“Father, I cannot give him up,” said Inarime.

“Then you are dead to me. Choose between us, my child. Marry him, and
go hence without a father. Drop your past, and take up your future
alone.”

“Oh, sir, this is a cruel choice for so tender a daughter. I cannot
allow it,” Gustav protested.

“It is my decision. Choose at once, Inarime.”

“Leave you, father, or leave--him?” she said, slowly, dazed with the
stress of the moment.

She looked from one to the other, and then with a little sob flung out
her arms towards her father, her eyes fastened in piteous entreaty on
Gustav’s.

“You will forgive me,” she whispered to Gustav; “you will understand?
My father! I cannot leave him. He cared so greatly for me. It would be
wicked. It would be cruel. He is old. We are young. Oh, dear God, help
me!” she cried, in shuddering sobs, but when her father approached to
touch her, she shrank from him in a kind of dismay and repugnance.

Shaken by an answering force of agony, Gustav was on his knees before
her, kissing her dress, her feet, her icy fingers. She trembled, and
a wave of colour spread over her face as she stooped and pressed her
hands against his wet eyes.

“Dearest, it will be worse for me,” she murmured.

“It is monstrous. I cannot, I will not accept dismissal. Youth is the
time of ardent purpose and revolt. Every nerve in our bodies, every
beat of our hearts must revolt against such cruelty. Your father must
relent if we both join against him.”

“I will not relent. Stand up, Herr Reineke. Accept your sentence like a
man, and be not less brave than a mere child.”

Thus chidden, Reineke stood up, like one struck mortally. His glance
never left Inarime’s and both were filled with an unfathomable
tenderness.

“Go, my daughter, to your room. This gentleman and I will start at once
for Xinara.”

Inarime made a step back towards the window, her face still turned to
Reineke’s, as a flower’s to the sun.

“Inarime!” cried Gustav, and in an instant she had bounded across the
terrace, and was clinging to him as if for sheer life.

“You see, sir,” said Gustav, looking up triumphantly, when their lips
were parted. “Love is ever conqueror.”

“I think not. My daughter, say at once, is this our parting--our last
parting and our first?”

Inarime lifted her head and removed her arms from her lover’s neck. She
gazed questioningly at both men, begged for pity from the one, and for
strength from the other.

The old man was sad and stern, as immovable as his own great Castro.
Gustav’s beautiful Eastern face was aflame and radiant in youth and
strength and passion.

Could she forsake the old and worn?

“Not that, father, not that,” she cried.

“Then leave that man and go inside.”

“I will obey you, father,” she said. “Farewell,” she cried, turning to
Gustav, and with one long look she passed from the terrace.




CHAPTER XVII.

PARTED LOVERS.


The last word has been spoken, the last look exchanged between the
lovers, and the wrench of parting is over. Gustav declined to accompany
Selaka back to Xinara; he was too shaken for society other than his
own. Inarime had bent to her father’s decision, and had accepted the
sundering of their lives. More than this he hardly knew.

When Selaka rode down the village, Gustav followed on foot, and knew
not whither he went,--content to drift along without purpose or desire.
Yet he dreaded the weakness of succumbing to a merely whimpering
sorrow. That something had gone from him to which he clung with a kind
of frenzied fervour he felt, but he was resolved that the sense of
desolation should not conquer him. He had said that he would accept
his fate at Inarime’s bidding; now, that that fate seemed harder than
human endurance, it was not for him to rebel in impotent anguish, but
to endeavour bravely to face the empty world.

As he entered the village of Steni, he saw a little band of villagers
approach the Greek church, and, hardly knowing why, he followed them.
The church was lit, and in the middle upon a table was a tray of sweets
and two long candles, upon which rested two wreaths joined by a long
white ribbon. Pricked by the dull curiosity of a man who no longer
feels interested in himself, he pushed his way on up the church,
lounged against the pillar and gazed with a strange calmness upon the
ceremonial, that soon began. No one who saw him would interpret his
impassivity of attitude and look as the despair of a suddenly wrecked
life.

The man beside him, standing with his hat on his head, and wearing the
preoccupied air with a visible nervousness that usually betokens the
happy man upon the portals of marriage, was a mere village clod in an
unpicturesque European garb, who stood beside his best man waiting for
the bride. A stout, plain, village girl was ushered into the church
in a whirlwind of excitement, surrounded by a circle of feminine
satellites. She neither looked at the bridegroom, nor at any one else,
but kept her eyes fixed in sullen acquiescence on the ground.

She wore a bright-coloured kerchief on her head, with a band of coins
round her forehead; and a profusion of jewellery decked her muscular
throat and arms. Very expensively and tastelessly was she arrayed,
and most miserable did she look in her finery. The fixed misery of
her face interested Gustav, who naturally thought it quite in keeping
with the lesson of life, that every one should look wretched. Three
priests advanced to wed this uncomely couple, and the evolutions that
followed struck Gustav with astonishment. He listened to the priests
as they droned out the wedding service, and held the Gospel now to the
bridegroom’s lips and then to the bride’s; and so on, three times;
watched them place the long lighted tapers in the hands of each;
watched the pair give and accept rings, and passively submit to the
decoration of the wreaths of artificial flowers, exchanged three times
upon either head.

Involuntarily Gustav smiled at the grotesque sight presented by the
village clod in his wreath of roses, and then marvelled when the
priests and principal personages, with their attendant swains and
nymphs, caught hands in a circle, and danced with inconceivable gravity
round the table backwards and forwards three times, the bride and
bridegroom still wearing their look of dull wretchedness. Good heavens!
Was this the kind of ceremony he would have been bound to go through
in his marriage with Inarime? to find himself hauled round a table,
as sailors haul in the anchor, bound in that degrading fashion with
roses! It was some slight salve for his wound to gaze in contempt at
this pastoral introduction to marriage, and when a little mischievous
boy upset the tray in order that he and his friends might taste of its
contents in the scuffle that ensued, and was frantically cuffed and
sworn at by the angry priests, Gustav burst out into gloomy laughter,
and made his way as well as he could out of the church.

He walked down the darkened street heavy-hearted, thinking of Inarime;
he dropped into the rough decline that leads to Xinara, and mingled
with the sad images of the day were the cruel dulness of the bride’s
face and the tame acceptance of the bridegroom. After all, perhaps it
was so; this might be the symbol of marriage, and not the high ideal he
yearned for.

Under a rocky projection he saw a man who had been pointed out to
him as a semi-idiot. An ambitious mother had sent him as a lad to
Marseilles; thence he had made his way up to Paris; and now this was
his state. Three years of stormy life in that nefarious city had turned
a bright lad into a bald, aged idiot, only twenty-five, looking more
than fifty. He was staring stupidly down through the thickening shadows
to where the sea beat against the distant shore: staring out from the
barren island that oppressed him; living acutely and horribly in memory.

Comforted by the sight of a fellow-sufferer, Gustav stopped and said
good-night. The wretched man glanced at him in dreary reproach.

“It used to be good-night over there in Paris; the boulevards were lit
and there were laughter and gaiety around, happy voices, music, cabs,
and pretty women. Here nothing, nothing, nothing, but the everlasting
sea and sky and the pathless mountain sides. Don’t say good-night to
me, sir, I am dead, irretrievably damned, damned, damned in hell!”

Gustav thought he was not the only living man who thought this world a
hell, and turned round by the desolate Castro. He climbed up the rocks,
overjoyed by the sensation of complete discomfort, of torn hands and
bruised members. Then he stretched himself on the top of the rock, and
looked out across the shadowy waters. The first faint glimmer of the
crescent shone in the glossy sky, and the stars looked like drops of
fire hanging above the world. There was no sound save the far-off roar
of the waterfalls thundering down their marble rocks, or the musical
clang of the goat and sheep bells as the shepherds gathered in their
flocks for the night. Sometimes a light flamed from a distant window.
Gustav thought of old stories he had read, in which maidens placed
lights in their windows to light their lovers, or wives as a message
to their husbands. The loneliness of his future broke in upon him in a
flood of self-pity. There was only one window he wanted to see lighted
for him, and that now would be eternally dark. Tears sprang to his
eyes, and then, fearful of the horror of the gathering outburst he
felt within him, he jumped down the rocks, now sliding, now racing on,
tangling his limbs in the bushes and furzes, and shot down the path
that hung over the little village of Xinara.

Demetrius saw him pass with flying feet, with set lips, and unseeing
eyes; and the popular shop-keeper turned to his patient satellites,
Johannes and Michael, and observed:

“He’s been to Mousoulou; I heard it all; the wedding takes place
immediately.”

“He’s a good-looking fellow,” said Johannes, apprehensive of the
reception of this innocent remark from so susceptible a leader.

“As for that, yes, and he’s getting a good-looking wife, though she
does dress outlandishly, and turns up her nose at my stuffs. She got
that yellow gown at Syra, and I can’t say I admire the big buttons she
wears.”

“Well,” said Michael, reflectively, “she is a very learned young woman,
and writes very fine letters for our women. I don’t know what they’ll
do when she goes away. I know my girl in Constantinople won’t be in
the way of hearing much from my wife.”

“Ay, that’s so,” said Demetrius, “she’ll be missed as letter-writer,
and I’m not so sure that the place won’t seem a good deal smaller and
duller when we’ve not her handsome face to look at.”

In the courtyard Gustav brushed up against Aristides, who glared at him
and muttered a curse as he removed his frame from the doorway, where
he had been airing his ill-humour for the benefit of Annunziata, busy
making the new Misythra.

“Here he is,” he said to his good-tempered listener, engaged just then
on the delicate process of straining off the sheep’s milk and tying up
the remainder of clotted cream tightly in a linen cloth.

Gustav strode up to her and said in an unfamiliar voice, chill and
remote like an echo:

“I am going.”

The pleasant old woman laid down her jar, dried her hands, and took
hold of his, tightening upon them with an inspiriting and sympathetic
grasp.

“My poor child, may God and His saints go with you! I know all. By
my faith, I see no reason why you should go. The Turk, we know, is a
heretic, but you would marry my Inarime according to the Greek rite.
You would be faithful to her as a Christian should be.”

“Faithful!” cried Gustav, vehemently. “Gladly would I die for her.” But
he did not see that of the two this is much the easier to do.

“Yes, yes,” said Annunziata, “young men in love talk very tall; when
the fit passes, they do very little. But I like you, and I am sorry for
you. Go away now; it is better so. Be assured that your interests here
will not suffer by being left in my hands.”

The tears were perilously near his eyelids; he struggled with rising
emotion, flung himself round, and in a moment his figure made a
vanishing and graceful shadow in the upper air. Selaka was within,
pacing the room in perplexed thought, when the young man entered.

“Sir, is this your last word? Must I go and not bear with me the hope
of returning?” demanded Gustav.

“You must,” said Selaka, gravely, “you cannot undo your birth, nor can
I.”

Gustav waited not for another word, but rushed into his room, hastily
gathered his things together, and reappeared in the little parlour with
his portmanteau in his hand. He stood in front of Selaka, and looked at
him steadily.

“Should this grief be too much for her?”

“She is strong, and she is brave,” said Selaka, “and she will overcome
it.”

“Good God!” said Gustav, “have you no thought of the girl’s heart? Are
there forces in nature, think you, to dispel or even dull its yearning?
Is there ever a barrier to the union of two souls! What you play with
is her happiness, for the sake of your own patriotic pride.”

Selaka did not answer, but covered his eyes with his hand, and said:

“It must be so. We are bound irrevocably by ties nearer, more sacred,
than any impulse of nature. There are animosities that cannot
shrink and vanish under such considerations as you urge; there is
a degradation that cannot be faced by any free spirit! Under other
circumstances, I should have regarded your marriage with my daughter as
an honour for me and a happiness for her. But that is at an end. You
will go hence, and you will forget us, but you may believe that our
kindest wishes will follow you wherever you may go.”

They shook hands, and thus they parted. Gustav found Aristides
waiting for him outside, with a mule for himself and a donkey for
his portmanteau; and through the increasing darkness and the shadows
of night, which lay like extended wings on the landscape, they rode
silently down into the town.

  *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

The next morning Pericles was shaken out of his moody disappointment
by Constantine’s wild letter written the night before his duel with
the lawyer Stavros, and an accompanying note from the brave Captain,
dwelling pompously on his gallant demeanour, and explaining that the
wound, the result of an awkward shot, was not in the least dangerous,
but simply troublesome, and that the presence of Dr. Selaka’s family in
Athens was desirable.

“The very thing. Inarime needs a change,” Pericles cried, brightening
at the prospect of getting outside his daughter’s grief.

He and Inarime embarked from the little pier for Athens late that
afternoon, and it seemed to him a hopeful omen that the forlorn girl
looked about her with eyes of interest.




BOOK III.




CHAPTER XVIII.

RUDOLPH AND ANDROMACHE.


New Year’s Eve at Athens by the Greek calendar. The long street of
Hermes was an execrable confusion of the mingled sounds of loud
chatter, laughter, jostling and popguns. Everybody was buying monster
bouquets for presentation on the morrow. Sensitive nerves were laid
prostrate in shivering ache by the din of squib and rattle, and
the intolerable and unceasing explosions, and the raw colours were
an offence to the eye. But the unfastidious Greeks were drunk with
excitement and pleasure. They proudly carried the purchased bouquets
with which the New Year’s greetings were to be exchanged, ate sweets,
laughed hilariously, and took their jostling very good-naturedly.
All the booths erected on either side of the street were covered
with flowers, and men went about bearing aloft long poles to which
bouquets for sale were affixed,--and these wands wore a curious
triumphal aspect. Oh, the dolorous strangeness and multiplied effects
of an Oriental town in holiday attire! Its clamorous and enervating
gaieties, and its exasperating want of tone! Think of it with a strong
sun beating down upon it, with not a touch of shadow or repose to
soothe the pained eyes, with incessant speech clanging and clattering
through the air, and every delicate sense affronted!

Foreigners and natives were abroad to view and drink at this local
fount of joy. One group we recognise. Rudolph Ehrenstein elbows his
way through the crowd and turns protectively every moment to his
delighted and staring companion, Andromache with the March-violet
eyes, whom we last saw with shamed and drooping head flee Madame
Jarovisky’s ball-room. How well, and young, and prettily infatuated the
pair look! And there is the glorious Miltiades behind them, bearing
on his arm his portly and panting mother. Was there ever conqueror so
irresistible? ever hero more gallantly conscious of his heroism? The
spectator thought of those hapless five thousand Turks, and shuddered;
heard the ostentatious rattle of his spurs, and that terrible weapon
of destruction hanging from his side in the eloquence of war; looked
at the scarlet plumes nodding above his noble brow, measured the
awful imposingness of his tall slim form in the sombre simplicity of
the Artillery Uniform and his long military boots, and rejoiced that
Providence is good enough to limit the number of such heroes, else
would surely be exterminated the horde of non-heroic.

This slaughterer of Turks was now content to be regarded as an amiable
slaughterer of women. Twirling his fierce moustache, with a casual
eye upon the young couple in front, he was looking round eagerly in
search of his latest victim, Miss Mary Perpignani, while his mother
breathed shortly on his arm, and kept muttering, “Poh! Poh! Poh! what a
crush!” while she vigorously fanned and rubbed her sallow face with her
handkerchief.

Above the foolish pair in front, Love’s star shone with a very gentle
fulgence. Just a sense of delicious trouble, unmarred by any passionate
impulses, stirred Rudolph. There was a delicate fragrance of homage
in his shy and boyish fancy. It was a happiness, exquisite in its
completeness and unexactingness, to be with Andromache, to listen to
her voice and look quickly, with the tell-tale blood of fervour in his
face, into her pretty eyes, his own shining and candid and content. Was
there ever a sweeter, more innocent idyll? and the pity was that these
two should not be allowed to run smoothly and trustingly into the shade
of forest depths and live the life of nature, with no knowledge of the
shabby compromises of civilisation and the more turbulent emotions of
the heart.

He called her Mademoiselle Andromache, and with a look of shyest prayer
had prevailed on her to call him sometimes Monsieur Rudolph. But the
_Monsieur_ and _Mademoiselle_ tripped by with alarming facility;
the tongue dwelt and faltered and whipped scarlet colour into each
susceptible cheek upon the _Andromache_ and _Rudolph_. Flattering,
foolish, happy creatures! If pulses never beat less innocently, and
senses never stirred more rapturously, the period of loverhood would
indeed be a spot of Arcadia upon the rough road of life.

“Does all this not make your head and eyes ache, Mademoiselle
Andromache?” he asked.

“No,” said the Greek maid, untroubled by nerves, and smiled in healthy
admiration. “Are not the bouquets pretty?”

“If you think them pretty, they must be pretty,” said Rudolph, striving
loyally to see their beauty. “I am glad you like flowers.”

“Why?” asked Andromache, meeting his eyes consciously.

“Because there are such quantities of flowers about my home in Austria.
It is a lovely place, Mademoiselle Andromache. Imagine a great forest,
so silent and shadowy. Oh, if you could see it in the moonlight! The
trees drop silver, and fairies seem to play among the branches. I wish
I could show it to you, take you to see the haunted well, and show
you my mother’s favourite walk. You would have loved my mother, dear
Mademoiselle Andromache. She was so good, so sweet, so gracious. Oh, it
was a bitter loss to me. I cannot accustom myself to it. Sometimes I
wake up at night and fancy I hear her enter my room, and feel her soft
kiss on my forehead--and it is dreary to know that it is only fancy.”

His voice shook and his clear eyes clouded. Andromache involuntarily
pressed his arm in sympathy, and when he looked down upon her he saw
responsive tears tremble on her lashes.

“Dear Andromache,” he said, in a whisper, “you make me feel less
lonely. Ah, how my mother would have loved you!”

And then these shy young persons, desperately afraid of each other and
of themselves, rushed eagerly on to impersonal ground.

At the Byzantine church of Camcarea, which quaintly obstructs Hermes
Street, they were jostled out of sight of their escort, upon which
Kyria Karapolos was thrown into a state of voluble alarm.

“Where are they, Miltiades? _Panaghia mou!_ Andromache alone with that
young man! Come, Miltiades! I shall have a fit if they have gone far.”

“It is all right, mamma,” laughed Andromache, behind them. “We were
pushed off the pavement, and had to let some people pass.”

And then she glanced roguishly at Rudolph, and another rivet in the
chain of intimacy was added by a sense of peril and crime shared
between them.

“Very well, Andromache. You will stay with me now, and Miltiades will
bring back Monsieur Ehrenstein to drink coffee with us later.”

The impenitent ruffian, who had endangered her daughter’s reputation,
took his dismissal gaily enough; bowed low and smiled delightfully upon
both ladies as he took the arm of the stately and stalwart Miltiades,
and stood for them to pass:

“Je crois c’est assez,” said Miltiades, with a comprehensive glance
up and down the noisy street, which had the bad taste not to show the
piquant face of Miss Mary Perpignani.

Rudolph, to whom the Captain’s limited vocabulary in French was a
source of perpetual amusement, intimated his concurrence with this
opinion, whereupon they ruthlessly beat their way down to Constitution
Square.

“Voulez-vous un café et cigarette?” asked the Captain, touching the
back of a chair, and the droll anxiety he displayed in uttering this
simple demand sent Rudolph into an explosion of appreciative mirth.

“Non, non, chez-vous, j’aime mieux,” said Rudolph, indistinctly,
between gasps of laughter.

Miltiades frowned, and held his head high with a proud, hurt air. His
French might be imperfect and his enunciation laborious, but he was
not the less for that a hero. By the grave of Hercules! was he to be
flouted and mocked by a young jackanapes from Austria?

“Mais, mon ami, il ne faut pas se fâcher,” cried Rudolph, full of
remorse and apprehension. “Ah, si vous saviez tout,” he added, and
forced Miltiades to stop and shake hands with him.

But how to unbosom oneself to a desired brother-in-law without a common
tongue? His Greek was even more limited than the other’s French, and of
German the gallant Captain’s knowledge was restricted to the convivial
“Trinken Sie Wein,” and “Hoch.” But despite the difficulties in the way
of conversation, the young men were delighted to be together.

Miltiades chattered Greek, and looked eager inquiry at Rudolph who
nodded significantly, and was as voluble and communicative in French.

What they said neither knew, but a gleam of intelligence broke the not
unpleasant darkness occasionally for Miltiades, in such pregnant words
as “votre sœur,” “j’aime,” and “épouser.”

“He wants to marry Andromache,” thought Miltiades, drawing himself up,
and looking very grave and responsible. “It would be a splendid match
for her, but his uncle will never consent to it. However, I’ll give
conditional consent.”

“Vous,--épouser ma sœur, Andromache?” he said slowly, as he faced
Rudolph with the heaviest air of guardian.

“Justement, Monsieur. Je le désire de tout mon cœur,” cried Rudolph,
flaming suddenly.

“Ah,” said Miltiades, pausing, and holding the suitor poised on the
wing of awful suspense. “Votre oncle?”

Here Rudolph broke out into vehement protestations regarding which not
one word did Miltiades understand. They turned up one of the openings
off Stadion Street that led direct to the Lycabettus, and here they met
little Themistocles, as fresh and dapper and dainty as if he were ready
for exhibition on a toy counter.

Miltiades collared him forcibly, and explained the extremity of his
need. Charmed by the possession of this sole superiority over the
warrior, which his fluent French gave him, little Themistocles lifted
his hat, and twirling his cane with an air of graceful ease, placed his
services as interpreter at the disposal of Monsieur Ehrenstein.

Thus was cleared the fog of doubt and perplexity. The Jovelike brow
of Miltiades smoothed, and the light of approval beamed softly in his
dark blue eyes. Little Themistocles minced, and smiled affectedly, and
shrugged his shoulders to an incredible extent, until the inferior
glory of the Parisian dandy was totally eclipsed. And Rudolph, now that
the fatal leap was taken, was full of vague apprehension and nervous
tremors. Was he quite so sure as he assumed to be that he had the right
to dispose of himself thus? But Andromache was so pretty and tender,
and he so greatly loved her!

The enchanted brothers, for once partners in feeling and idea, hurried
him up the steep, unpaved streets, laughing boisterously as they jumped
the flowing streamlets that intersect them, and when they reached the
glass door of the beloved’s home, Miltiades rapped sharply against the
pane.

“Maria, tell my mother to join us in the salon,” he said.

“Kyria, you are wanted in the salon,” shouted Maria from the passage,
shaking her hair out of her eyes the better to stare at Rudolph. “I’m
thinking it is Andromache he wants, and not the old lady,” she muttered.

Kyria Karapolos came puffing excitedly from the dining-room at the end
of the passage, followed by Julia, who wore her sulkiest air.

“You are not wanted, Julia,” cried Miltiades, striding into the salon,
his sword and spurs making a fearful clatter along the floor.

“You are not wanted, Julia,” echoed Themistocles, vindictively, eager
to air his own special spite under the cover of Miltiades’ command.

Miltiades frowned and glowered upon him. He resented the liberty
of spurious authority in his presence, and a repetition of thunder
irritated him. But Rudolph’s presence checked his anger, and when the
suitor, the reigning sovereigns and their humble interpreter were
seated, there were perfect serenity and dignity in his bearing.

“Monsieur Rudolph Ehrenstein wants to marry Andromache,” he said,
opening the proceedings.

“_Panaghia mou!_” cried Kyria Karapolos, with a look of unutterable
astonishment at an announcement hourly expected.

“He says his uncle will not object, and cannot practically interfere,”
Miltiades explained.

“And that he is rich enough to dispense with a dowry,” added
Themistocles, thereby bringing upon himself a lightning-flame of
contempt from the hero of Greece.

“_Panaghia mou!_ But I am rejoiced. My dear Monsieur Ehrenstein, you
are charming. I am happy to give you Andromache. Oh, but this is a
blessed moment for me!” and with that she rose, and emphatically
embraced poor Rudolph, whom the ordeal rendered giddy and awkward. This
was the signal for general demonstrations of affection. Miltiades shook
hands, and kissed the cheeks of his future brother-in-law, and little
Themistocles did likewise.

“Order coffee and liqueur, mother,” said Miltiades.

“You are very amiable,” Rudolph said, gratefully, disturbed by the
trouble of the moment. “I am sure it will be my pride and happiness to
deserve your good-will in the future.”

Kyria Karapolos returned with Andromache, and announced that the
refreshments of jubilation would shortly appear.

“Andromache, behold your husband,” exclaimed Miltiades, with a slightly
theatrical flourish.

Whereupon little Themistocles sighed profoundly, and retreated to his
own chamber to vex the sunset with strains of his asthmatic violin, to
muse upon his misery and think of the young lady in the next street.
With a significant nod, Captain Miltiades marched away to imaginary
glory, and Kyria Karapolos, in a kindly impulse, found a pretext for a
short absence in the necessity for Julia’s presence.

How frightened and shy two confiding young people can be when first
confronted with the horrors of a tête-à-tête.

Andromache was ready to sink with shame, and Rudolph’s heart was in his
boots. He looked at her with piteous entreaty, but her lashes rested
upon her cheek.

“Andromache, you are not afraid of me, you do not like me less
because--because----” and there was something extremely like fear in
his own voice and in the tender imploring of his eyes.

“Oh, no, but I do not know what to say,” whispered Andromache, still
studying the Smyrna rug at her feet.

“Look at me, Andromache, and say--say something kind.”

She lifted her eyes, and they were filled with passionate admiration:

“Say that--that you love me.”

“I love you,” she said, with adorable simplicity.

“Oh, Andromache,” he cried, suffocated with a sudden thrill, and
advanced nearer with outstretched hand.

But she retreated in visible dread.

“May I not have your hand, Andromache?”

She gave it, still shrinking, with averted face.

“Won’t you call me Rudolph, dear Andromache?”

“Rudolph,” she whispered, and their eyes met lovingly.

Emboldened by his success, he raised her hand to his lips.

“What a pretty hand, Andromache! You are so pretty, dear one. I love
you,” he murmured gently, and steps were heard outside.




CHAPTER XIX.

A CRUEL UNCLE.


What are the forces, and on whose behalf employed, that trouble the
smooth current of true love? We have seen one pair cruelly separated,
and now must these innocents be subjected to infamous treatment? Has
the sentence from the beginning been irrevocably pronounced, that if
both Adam and Eve prove faithful and worthy, their Eden cannot escape
the serpent? Must their bliss be poisoned either by the reptile of Fate
or by themselves? Poor sorry lovers, there is no peace, no security
for you, even in romance. Your only chance of permanent interest lies
in the mist of misfortune. The moment you bask in cloudless content,
the wings of poetry are clipped, and your garb is the insipidity of
commonplace.

The bolt of Destiny was shot from the blue of dreams next morning, when
Rudolph was banqueting blissfully with his uncle and aunt at the midday
breakfast.

“Rudolph,” said the enemy, in amiable baronial form, “your aunt and I
have arranged a charming surprise for you.”

Rudolph looked up quietly, without a smart of premonition, and smiled
his pleasantest.

“That is kind, uncle. And the surprise?”

“Well, seeing how bored you are here--and, really, my dear boy, I am
not astonished--we are going to take you on an exciting voyage through
the Peloponnesus. We will show you all the historic spots.”

“But, my dear uncle, I have no desire whatever to see the Peloponnesus
or any historic spots,” exclaimed Rudolph, paling before the vision of
himself wandering away from Andromache. “I hate history, and don’t care
a straw for the ancient Greeks.”

“Oh, Rudolph, don’t show me that I’ve built my hopes on you in vain,”
exclaimed the baroness, in cheerful dismay. “I have been counting on
you to explain everything to me. Your acquaintance with school books is
so much more recent than mine, and the baron is even more hazy in his
recollections than I.”

“I am very sorry to disappoint you, aunt, but I cannot leave Athens at
present. I am not bored, uncle, I assure you. I am very happy, and I
love Athens.”

The baron looked at him sharply, and thought he wore much too happy an
air.

“Rudolph, I entreat you--if I were not so massive, I would kneel to
you,” cried the baron, in mock prayer, “allow us to drag you away for
one solitary fortnight from the enchantress, Mademoiselle Photini
Natzelhuber. I admit that our society and the sight of historic spots
will prove an inadequate substitute for her charms and fascinations,
but humour this whim of two old people, and your return to the feet of
the yellow-eyed witch of Academy Street will be the more delightful.”

“I don’t know what you mean, uncle,” protested Rudolph, with a look
of startled anxiety. “I have not seen Mademoiselle Natzelhuber since
Madame Jarovisky’s ball.”

“Not possible? Good gracious! that one so young should be so faithless!
The contemplation of the perfidy of my own sex, Madame, fills my eyes
with tears. But no, I apprehend. It is merely the refined hesitation of
innocence. He sighs at her door--serenades her--have you not, Madame,
remarked a tell-tale look about his violin?--and consumes quantities of
paper. Well, I shall see that there are at least a dozen quires of note
paper, of the very best quality, stamped with the family coat-of-arms,
placed in your portmanteau, Rudolph, and your aunt and I will retire
discreetly into the background while you compose your flaming epistles
and frantically adjure the moon and stars instead of Mademoiselle
Photini.


     “‘Ma Photini, prépare ta toilette,
     Il y a un mois que la mienne est déjà faite;
     Mes beaux habits, mes seuls habits,
     Voilà un mois que je les ai mis.’


There are some verses, ‘une invitation au mariage,’ of which I make
you a present. You didn’t know that I sometimes perpetrate impromptu
verses? Good, aren’t they? ‘Ma Photini,’” he began again, singing the
lines to an impromptu air, seemingly unconscious that the crimson of
anger had mounted to Rudolph’s brow.

“You must not tease the boy,” said the baroness, maliciously.
“Remember, you were once in love yourself.”

“With you, Madame, before me, as a substantial testimony of that
pleasant fact, I do not see how I can forget it,” smiled the baron.

“My dear baron, our Rudolph well understands that that is not the sort
of love he is pricked with. But, seriously, my dear child, you must not
abandon us. A young man loves and he rides away--for a time--which does
not in the least prevent him from riding back again, also for a time.
Don’t you see? The Natzelhuber won’t die meanwhile.”

“Aunt, I cannot understand why you should talk in this way about
Mademoiselle Natzelhuber. Let me positively state that she is nothing
to me, nor am I anything to her,” cried Rudolph, testily.

“Poor Mademoiselle! I weep for her,” said the baron. “And there is that
wretched Agiropoulos stamping and swearing about Athens, plotting duels
and blood and the Lord knows what, protesting against yellow-headed
Austrians and amber moustaches. Dear me! That such noble indignation,
and a jealousy with a fine mediæval flavour in it, should be wasted!
Well, it is settled. If you have got over that little affair of the
Natzelhuber, any scruples I may have cherished against tearing you
away from the violet-crowned city--vanish. So, my nephew, you will get
yourself up in that fascinating green coat and the long boots to-morrow
morning, and we will begin by Marathon.”

The baron had finished his coffee and cigar, and stood up with a
gesture clearly indicating that the matter was settled. His mocking
smile struck Rudolph coward, and though his heart clamoured for open
recognition of Andromache, he was unable to force his tongue to break a
silence he felt to be mean and unmanly.

“By the way, Rudolph, we have invited the Foreign Legations to dinner
at Kephissia, and there will be an expedition before dinner to Tatoi.
The young people will ride, and the elder ones will go by carriage. We
start at four, so you will not forget to look your best, and do your
utmost to entertain Mademoiselle Veritassi,” said the baron, from the
door.

This last shot broke the deeps of holy indignation in the lover’s
heart. The Karapolos dined at half-past one. It would be discourteous
to call earlier than three. And how much time did that leave him for
Andromache? and he would be dragged away from her on the morrow. He
looked so candidly miserable and disappointed, that his aunt went over
to him, and kissed his forehead.

“Is it your wish, aunt, that I should go with you this afternoon? Could
I not join you later in time for dinner at Kephissia?”

“You poor child!” exclaimed the baroness, tenderly, smiling to herself
to think that he imagined them ignorant of his secret, and that it
should be so easy to manage and thwart him.

“No, no, Rudolph. It would be an affront to our guests. You are like
the son of the house now, and your presence is indispensable to the
young people.”

Rudolph sighed, and kissed his aunt’s plump hand in piteous and dumb
eloquence of protest and acquiescence. His eyes were full of tears as
he stood at his own window, and gazed like an angry, disappointed child
across the lovely hills and sudden sweeps of empty plain. Why had he
not spoken? Why had he not asserted himself? A man on the brink of
marriage ought surely to be able to take on himself the responsibility
of speech and decision. But there was the mocking smile of his uncle
that lashed him into petrified cowardice, like a well-bred taunt, and
flushed him like a buffet, and how to make these worldly relations
understand the charm of innocence, the fragrance of a violet, the
beauty of an untutored heart?

Punctually at three o’clock, he rapped with his silver-handled
walking-stick upon the glass door at the foot of Lycabettus. He had
learnt to ask in Greek for the ladies, and with a stare and smile of
frank familiarity, Maria supposed it was Andromache and not the others
he wanted. The Austrian aristocrat, to whom all evidences of democracy
and ill-bred freedom were repugnant, reproved her with a slight touch
of haughty insolence, and pointedly repeated his wish to see Kyria
Karapolos and her family.

“Kyria Karapolos, the fair young foreigner, is here,” shouted Maria,
and left him to find his way into the little salon.

“My dear Monsieur Ehrenstein, it is a pleasure to me to welcome you,”
said Kyria Karapolos, hastening to join him.

Her French was fluent, but droll enough to make conversation with her a
surprise and a puzzle.

“I have come to tell you that my uncle and aunt have planned an
excursion to the Peloponnesus, and they insist on my accompanying
them,” Rudolph began at once, very dolorously indeed.

“Well, of course you must please your uncle and aunt. It will make
them the more disposed afterwards to assent to your happiness. Here is
Andromache. Monsieur Ehrenstein has to leave Athens for a little while.
It is quite right. He must not displease those who stand to him as
father and mother.”

Andromache blanched to the lips, and then a wave of red flowed into her
face. Rudolph felt that he loved her more than ever, and while he held
her hand, a smile struggled through the pain of his eyes.

“It is so cruel to have to leave you just now, Andromache.”

She dared not trust herself to speak, for she hardly knew how much it
is permitted a modest maiden to say to her lover. But her pretty eyes
said a great deal more than she dreamed. Rudolph looked into them, and
a happy light broke over his face.

“You grieve too, dear,” he said, softly.

“Must you go, Rudolph?” she asked, tremulously.

“Shall I go, sweet friend?”

Andromache looked question at her mother.

“Of course he must,” cried Kyria Karapolos. “It would be folly to anger
or thwart them in the beginning. Besides, it won’t be for long, and we
can be getting things ready for the wedding in the meantime.”

“Am I to go, Andromache?” Rudolph still asked, holding her shy glance
boldly with his own.

“Yes,” she whispered.

She took a little roll of embroidery from the pocket of her apron, and
applied herself to it eagerly, but the needle pricks marked tiny spots
of red along the cambric. Rudolph noted this, and anxiously cried out
that she was hurting him. Andromache looked up in amazement.

“Don’t you understand?” asked this youth, suddenly growing subtle. “It
is my fingers you are so cruelly pricking with that sharp needle.”

Andromache flashed him a joyous smile, and he bent forward, and held
both her hands to his mouth.

“I love you, I love you,” he murmured, fondly.

“Rudolph,” she said, and dropped her eyes.

Kyria Karapolos thought proper to strike this growing heat chill with
a sound commonplace, by asking him if he had much land in Austria, and
what was the exact amount of his rent-roll.

“I believe it amounts to five thousand, but my steward manages
everything for me. You may be assured, however, that I have quite
enough for Andromache and myself,” answered Rudolph, simply.

This drove him to describe Rapoldenkirchen, and he necessarily
rhapsodised over its loveliness, and the happiness that awaited
Andromache in that shadowed home. And there in front of him was the
clock summoning him from heaven; it already pointed cruelly to the
stroke of four. He stood up and announced his hurry, shook hands with
Kyria Karapolos, and held a moment Andromache’s slim fingers, looking
sorrowfully into the shining March-violets he felt an irresistible
impulse to kiss.

“You will think of me every day, dear?”

“I will, Rudolph.”

“Whisper. Am I very dear to you?”

“Oh, Rudolph, I love you,” she cried, and broke down in simple passion.

He stooped hurriedly and pressed his lips to her hair. In another
instant he was outside, tearing madly down the rough streets, splashing
his boots and clothes in the little streams, jumping over groups of
astonished babies, and racing, as if pursued by furies, past the
Platea Omonia and up the Patissia Road.

There was a carriage outside the Austrian Embassy, and just as he got
inside, a group of riders bore down towards it.

“Monsieur Rudolph will be down presently,” the major-domo explained, in
answer to the irritable inquiries of the baron.

When Rudolph descended to the hall in his charming riding attire,
the baron surveyed him with a curious and amused smile, and nodded
approvingly.

“There are some young ladies for you to look after. Spare them, I
entreat you,” and, in reply to Rudolph’s questioning look, added,
“Young ladies, you know, are weak and susceptible, and you wear an
abominably victimising air.”

Rudolph jumped into the saddle with a very apparent want of alacrity.
Mademoiselle Veritassi smiled him welcome, and unconsciously he took
his place beside her. Three carriages carried the elders, and the party
of youthful riders nearly made the dozen. The air was blithe, the sun
shone gloriously and struck the landscape lucid green. The young blood
of the impressible Rudolph mounted to his head. The laughter of his
companions imparted its contagion to his bereaved heart; on he rode
with spring running music through his pulses, and caught by the mirth
of the landscape.

The young people showed no destructive tendency to break into couples,
but kept one gay and impregnable party, laughing, joking, careering in
hearty rivalry to see who should out-distance the sedate carriage-folk,
chattering nonsense and enjoying the hour with the frenzied intensity
of unperturbed youth. Mademoiselle Veritassi made a delightful
companion, with the charm of a well-bred boy, courteously brusque and
quizzically candid.

Under the fire of her imperious glance the sundered, dolorous air
dropped from Rudolph, the wine of life coursed vigorously through his
veins, and he shouted laughter with the rest. They skirted the stations
of upper and lower Patissia under the blue shadows of the Parnes
mountains. The marble of Pentelicus, struck by the quivering sunbeams,
broke the delicate mist afar. On either side, the long waste of olive
plantations toned the joy of the scene by their sad colour, and brought
out the contrast of the emerald grasses of the underwoods, and the
variously-tinted reeds that edge the torrent of the river Cephissus.
The little German village of Heraclion showed white and yellow, with
solemn spaces of cypress, upon the sky of clear, unshadowed blue.
Flocks of white and black sheep were like moving mounds upon the
fields, and over all hung Pentelicus, a haze of grey heather and
dismantled branches where its marbles were not a dazzle of whiteness.
Rudolph was enchanted with everything--with the blurred hillsides and
the murmuring streams that curled in soft swirls along by the hedges,
with the goatherds following their capricious charges,--the villagers,
burnt brown, in the glory of fustanella, scarlet fez and smart
jackets, their long sleeves hanging back like idle wings,--with the
boys and their donkeys, and the women in embroidered coats and muslin
head-dresses.

At Kephissia it was obligatory to dismount and hunt for the grotto of
nymphs, and then talk nonsense beneath its dripping rocks and curtains
of maidenhair. It was even compulsory to taste of its water, and the
French viscount made a gallant allusion, and quoted the inevitable line
from Homer. Then on up the straight road to Tatoi, the arbutus in full
fruit, and on either side exquisite varieties of shrub and leaf and
winter flowers. The young ladies were eager to feed on the arbutus,
and sent their escorts to gather this ethereal nourishment. And when
they were replenished, and satisfied with the smirched and bramble-torn
condition of the cavaliers, they decorated their bosoms with the
berries, which showed like balls of blood upon their sombre habits. All
this necessarily involved much explosive mirth and many inarticulate
cries. And men and maidens rode on, convinced there is no delight to
match a ride through winter Athenian landscape, when the heart is
fresh, the eyes are clear, and the senses near the surface; when, above
all, there is plenty of arbutus-fruit for the gathering, cavaliers to
tear their gloves in its search through the bushes and brambles, and
attractive maidens to wear and eat it.

What more potent than youth’s wild spirits? At dinner it was impossible
to say whether the young people or the old, to whom they had
communicated their irrepressible gaiety, were the more intoxicated.
What amazing tact and calculation were displayed by the Baron and
Baroness von Hohenfels! Well they understood the impressionable and
susceptible temperament they had to deal with when they gathered
together these gems of their society. Such brilliant eyes and laughing
teeth gleaming above the flowers, such whiz of airy and unseizable
nothings shot high on the wings of badinage, with the same intangible
flavour as the foam of champagne which plentifully drowned them. All
seemed specially conspiring to captivate the poor bereaved lover. And
so well did they succeed, that he quite forgot Andromache. It was only
after dinner, when Mademoiselle Veritassi was invited to sing, and
selected something weakly sentimental in French, all about hearts and
sighs and tears and parting, that the new-born babe, the infant Cupid,
began to clamour and blubber within him. Then he turned aside to think
of Andromache. He pressed his head against the window, and stared
blankly out upon the hotel gardens drenched with moonlight, the flowers
washed of all colour in their bath of silver.

The baron saw him in this doleful attitude, and coming up behind him,
held one hand sentimentally upon his heart and the other stretched out,
in frantic adjuration to the moon.

“Ma Photini, prépare ta toilette,” he sang.

Rudolph faced him angrily, barely able to restrain the strong
exclamation that rushed to his lips.

“No, I have just made better, that is, more appropriate verses.
Mademoiselle Natzelhuber is notorious for not greatly caring for dress.
Then it is clearly an offence to mention it.”

Rudolph muttered the German equivalent for “bosh,” and walked away.

Has any philosopher deigned to discover the reason why, when a party
of young folks start upon a boisterous expedition, and laugh until the
woods resound with their mirth, the return to the domestic hearth is
generally so silent and so depressed? They are bound to sigh, and look
at the stars, or at themselves, in a forlorn and disappointed way, and
wonder where and why all their wild enjoyment has vanished.

Rudolph rode in front with Mademoiselle Veritassi, and remembered not
the existence of his companion, as his profound and troubled gaze
rested solemnly upon the dark landscape. The wavy hilltops stood far
out from the horizon, and the sky, instead of looking like a blue
shield against them, shot away like a sea of infinite mist. The night
air blew chilly round Athens, and the Viscount cheerfully suggested the
visit of those intemperate blasts that howl down from the encircling
hills with frantic force, and prove more than anything the exceeding
greatness of that mass of broken pillars and temples upon the Acropolis
that have resisted their destructive strength all these centuries.

But the next day, though cold, was not thought unfit for travelling,
and, at an early hour, Rudolph was carried out of Athens to hear his
uncle spout and quote upon the plain of Marathon, where the anemones
were getting ready for their spring display. Pray, what did Rudolph
care about Miltiades? Had he not an intended brother-in-law of the
name worth ten such generals? Indeed, he hazarded the opinion that
the old one was greatly overrated, upon which his diplomatic uncle
smiled, as the wise smile upon the foolish--the smile of tolerant and
good-humoured superiority.




CHAPTER XX.

AT THE THEATRE.


Pericles carried his wounded brother to Phalerum for the period of
convalescence, which an incessantly choleric spleen indefinitely
prolonged. They stayed at the Grand Hotel looking upon the sanded
beach, made cheerful by the café-tables and the proximity of the
railway station, by which hosts of voluble Athenians were ever passing
and repassing. In the afternoon they lounged amid the olive trees by
the side of the hotel, athwart which the blue of sky and sea showed
sharply, and drank their coffee while Constantine eagerly devoured “The
Hora” and the “The Palingenesia,” ready to pounce like a hawk on its
prey upon the first chance acquaintance Providence, in the shape of the
half-hourly train, should send him from Athens.

Pericles sat reading one of his favourite volumes, now and then pausing
to look watchfully at his daughter, and thankful in his heart to see
how well she bore her sorrow. Inarime was for a time laid prostrate
by Gustav’s banishment. And then youth’s elasticity rebounded with
unconquered force. Like a drenched bird, she shook out her wet plumes,
returned to her books, and saw that the sun was shining and that the
flowers were blooming--noted it unwearily and without dismay. To
recognise this much in the time of passionate absorption in self is
a rapid stride towards recovery, and at such a moment new scenes and
excitements of any sort work most potently.

February had set in sharp and chill when they returned to Athens,
Constantine cured and spared the humiliation of seeing the town
illuminated in honour of the new Mayor, Oïdas. He insisted on bringing
Inarime to the ruinously expensive dressmaker, Madame Antoinette, and
there she was supplied with every imaginable detail of fashionable
toilet, crowned with a gorgeous red silk parasol and long embroidered
Suède gloves.

Inarime, thus apparelled, stood before a cheval mirror, and placidly
gazed astonishment at herself. It was impossible to deny that dress
added glory to her beauty. Picturesque she had been before with a
fitting background of valley and desolate mountain. Now she was a nymph
of Paris in walnut-coloured silk, and a little coquettish hat tipped
with feathers.

“Now you are fit to be seen in the streets of a capital, Inarime,”
said Constantine, surveying her proudly. “Take her with you to Madame
Jarovisky’s, Pericles.”

Pericles took her, to Madame Jarovisky’s lasting gratitude. The girl
was a positive sensation. Several men stopped to congratulate her uncle
next day.

“We must take her to the theatre. There is _Faust_ on to-night. Every
one likes _Faust_, and it will delight Inarime, while she is delighting
others,” he said.

“I see no objection to the theatre, but mind, Constantine, I will not
have the girl talked of. Remember what my great namesake says of women.
Their glory is the silence men observe upon them.” Here he quoted the
famous Oration.

“Stuff and nonsense! Your mind is addled with that folly of the
Ancients. Who the deuce cares nowadays about silent virtue or the
violet blushing unseen? This is the age of advertisement. Get yourself
talked of, yourself, your house, your women--if not well, then by all
means ill. Only get the talk. Do you imagine I have not gone about
everywhere spreading the report of your learning? That is why you
receive so many cards of invitation. I extolled you to the director of
the German School of Archæology, and he was so impressed that he sends
you a request to attend their meeting next month.”

Shame and disappointment struck scarlet Pericles’ sallow face. He
thought the letter the natural result of his own recognised and merited
reputation, mainly built upon a correspondence with one of the Greek
professors of the University of Bonn.

“Brother,” he reproved, sternly, “it would afford me much satisfaction
if you would be good enough to discontinue mentioning abroad my name
and my daughter’s.”

“Then I am curious to know how you intend to dispose of that girl of
yours.”

Pericles sat still, and played musingly with his finger-tips.

“I must marry her?” he interrogated, softly.

“Marry her! What in the name of all the heathen gods else would
you do with her? Stick a professor’s cap on her head, and send her
out to lecture to a band of curious rascals like that rash and
self-opinionated young woman, Hypatia? You’d make a respectable Theon.”

“His was the easier part. But Inarime would not be unworthy, though
it is the last career I should choose for her,” said Pericles, with a
quaint smile.

“Exactly. You apprehend inflammable youth.”

“I desire but to see my daughter live securely in the shade of
protection. There are times when I feel overwhelmed with a strange
sensation--half-illness, half the simple withdrawal of vitality. Then
it is that apprehensions and terror of a solitary future for that dear
girl assail and completely master me. I would have her married, and yet
it seems so improbable that I shall find a suitable partner, one to
whom her cultured intellect would be a noble possession, to whom her
beauty would be a thing of worship. There was one--alas! alas!”

“Well, that’s settled. You sent him about his business. It was a
foolish thing to do. Helene thinks so, too. A Turk! Well, we don’t
choose our nationality. Probably he would just as soon have been born
a Greek or a German. Let that pass. Turn the lock upon your desire for
culture and learning. They won’t put bread and olives into Inarime’s
mouth. Money, Pericles, money is what we must look to.”

When consulted about the theatre, Inarime showed sufficient pleasure in
the prospect to quiet the doubts of her anxious father.

“Come down to Antoinette, and get something pretty--very pretty,”
Constantine ordered. “You are not a fool, I suppose, and can take some
natural interest in your beauty.”

“I am glad that I am beautiful,” she said, gravely.

“Very well. Put on your hat, and we’ll drive at once to Antoinette,”
her uncle laughed hilariously. “Oh, women!”

Conceive the efficiency of a Parisian dressmaker instructed to enhance
beauty. Bedeck Inarime then according to fancy, so that the costume be
both scientific and suitable.

Constantine was master upon the occasion, ordered the carriage, secured
the box, and fussily did the honours to the bewildered islanders when
they arrived in the little back street in which the old theatre was
located. It was a most grotesque and shabby paper edifice, ugly, dirty,
unstable. But it was worth the tenth-rate Italian companies who hired
it, and usually left Athens, after the season, bankrupt. The men,
untroubled by feminine charges, sat in the parterre, King George’s
officers, of whom there are many, enjoyed the spectacle on half fees,
chattering, laughing, and ostentatiously clanking their spurs and
swords against the floor as they walked about between the acts. Here
and there an aspiring civilian made believe to come fresh from Paris by
appearing _en frac_, and impertinently focussed the constellation of
beauty in the box lined with cheap and ragged paper, and in the last
stage of dilapidation.

They were playing the waltz when the Selakas entered their box. In
spite of excruciating fiddles, and tuneless and vulgar singers, it was
possible to detect its intoxicating charm, and Inarime sat and listened
with a pleased, abstracted expression, her elbow resting on the front
of the box and her chin against her cream-gloved hand. Constantine took
the seat beside her, in front, and audibly hummed the air while his
quick glance roved over the house. He saw Oïdas, the Mayor, opposite in
a box with his sister and his little motherless girl. They exchanged
an uncordial nod, and the Mayor raised his opera-glass to inspect
Inarime. He passed it to his sister, and they nodded and whispered
together. The young bloods below were soon enough conscious that there
was somebody in the boxes worth looking at. Many an eye was turned from
the middle-aged Marguerite, whose flaxen wig inartistically exposed the
black hair underneath and who wore a soiled white wrapper of uncertain
length, with grass-green bows down the front.

With naïve earnestness Inarime followed the actors, listened to the
melodies, and frequently turned to bespeak her father’s attention. She
was acquainted with Goethe, and knew the story of Marguerite in its
classic form. But this sweet and voluptuous music was quite unfamiliar
to her. Of music, good or bad, she knew nothing, and had only
occasionally heard a village piper piping for the Arcadians to dance.
She could see that the dresses were dirty and tawdry, but the novelty
of beholding a tender love-scene for the first time acted even by a
stagy foolish Faust singing false, and by a cracked-voiced Marguerite
in a slovenly wrapper, with wig awry, to the accompaniment of squeaking
fiddles and hoarse ’cellos, brought tears of sympathy to her eyes.
Her emotions were too keenly touched to allow of her remembering the
necessity of wiping away her tears, and when the curtain went down, the
tell-tale drops had fallen on her cheek.

“What a lovely young woman,” Agiropoulos exclaimed, as he stood with
his back to the stage, and leisurely surveyed the occupants of the
boxes.

“Where?” asked Rudolph, tolerantly.

“Beside the Royal Box. She is with the gallant and fiery member for
Tenos.” Agiropoulos broke into laughter, and began to quote Constantine
at the Odeon. “‘I’ll mangle him, murder him, riddle him with shots,’
and when it came to the point he had as much courage as a draggled hen.”

Rudolph smiled faintly. He had heard the story before, and
Agiropoulos’s excessive spirits bored him. He turned round and looked
straight up at the Selaka group. He saw Inarime at once, wearing an
intense, almost tragic expression, as if the curtain had just gone down
upon her own first love-scene; some moments elapsed before he removed
his eyes from her.

Constantine went away in search of an ice for his niece, and a little
distraction for himself in shape of gossip and a cigarette. He knocked
against Oïdas, and the rival politicians stopped to shake hands.

“Is that your niece you have with you?” the Mayor asked.

“Yes. She and Pericles are staying in town now.”

“A very fine girl--I may say, a very beautiful one. Has your brother
any views with regard to her?”

“Matrimonial?” queried Constantine, laughing.

“Those, I think, are the only views fathers are supposed to entertain
about their daughters,” retorted Oïdas, with awkward, averted glance.

“Oh, of course. He naturally cherishes the hope to dispose of her some
day with entire satisfaction to her and to himself.”

“Anybody in question?”

Constantine faced his interrogator boldly, narrowed his eyelids to a
sly, meditative slit, and answered:--

“You think of offering yourself, perhaps.”

“I should certainly have no objection to a beautiful young wife. She
has a dowry, I presume.”

“I presume so,” said Selaka, shutting up his lips in a portentous way.
“But there is something else to be considered besides your willingness.”

“Undoubtedly. Still, it is a sufficiently important point. That is why
I mention it.”

Constantine understood perfectly well that such wealth as Oïdas’
entitled its owner to his confident air. No sane father would be likely
to reject or hesitate before such an offer as this, and the girl would,
of course, be guided by her father.

“Well, I’ll see what I can do,” conceded the wily Constantine.

“Begin by introducing me at once,” suggested the Mayor.

The aspiring Mayor was carried triumphantly to the Selakas’ box.
The introduction enabled Oïdas to relieve Inarime of her saucer,
which he did with ponderous civility. She was hot and wretched in
spite of the eaten ice. Of the Mayor’s presence she took no note; in
spirit she gazed gloomily back upon the departed vision of Gustav
so harrowingly evoked by the music. Oïdas devoted himself to Selaka
with an occasional inclusive droop towards Inarime, whom he furtively
and appraisingly observed. Into his box opposite Stavros entered,
circumspect, thoroughly unobstructive, having joined the Government and
resigned the editorship of the “New Aristophanes.” He looked casually
at Constantine, and bit his underlip, it might be to restrain a blush
or a smile. In the next box, just before the curtain went up on the
second act, Miltiades rose like an evening sun upon the amazed scene,
in _grande tenue_, cheerfully attended by his mother and Andromache.

“Your twin-soul,” whispered Agiropoulos. “Hector is called.”

Rudolph turned round quickly, beheld Andromache with soft invitation
in her glance, jumped up, and in passing down the house, his eyes
rested for one moment on Inarime’s face. He withdrew them angrily, in
the delicate belief that even a dim consciousness of any other woman’s
beauty but his own particular lady’s was almost a deliberate disloyalty.

“Oh, Rudolph, have you not seen her? Is she not beautiful?” Andromache
enthusiastically asked, as she turned round her affectionate and
glowing face to his when greetings were over, and he had taken his
recognised place behind her chair.

“Who?” Rudolph whispered; rapture demanding that their lightest words
should be folded in mystery.

Andromache pointed to the Selaka box. The young man looked steadily
across over Andromache’s shoulder, frowned a little, and admitted
grudgingly:

“She is handsome, but not soft and sweet like my Andromache.”

“Oh, Rudolph!” Andromache flashed on him delightedly.

He had only the day before come back from the Peloponnesus, and in a
week he hoped to have summoned up courage to declare his honourable
bondage to the baron, and start for Austria to conclude pre-nuptial
arrangements.




CHAPTER XXI.

A CHORUS OF ATHENIAN MAIDENS.


When Constantine lighted his niece’s candle and handed it to her, he
touched Pericles on the arm and nodded.

“I want you to smoke a cigarette with me before going to bed. I have
something to say to you.”

Pericles suffered himself to be led into the sitting-room, and
proceeded to roll up a cigarette while his brother lighted the lamp.

“We are agreed upon the advisability of at once marrying Inarime, I
suppose?” he began.

“At once!” Pericles exclaimed, in alarm.

“Why not?”

“Think of her recent wound. She behaved so well. I cannot in conscience
so soon do wrong to the memory of her lover.”

“Sentiment! The world only exists by ignoring it. What have the fancies
of girls to do with suitable family arrangements? I declare you are
as great a fool as the child herself. A young woman permits herself
the blamable freedom of looking complacently upon a young man who has
not been officially chosen for her. She must perforce think herself a
martyr and her guardians executioners, when it becomes necessary for
them to reprimand her and order her to withdraw her prematurely fixed
affections. Good gracious! It is preposterous. We might as well be in
England or in some equally wild place, where girls are unprotected and
forward.”

“Whom have you in view?” Pericles quietly asked, bringing the orator
back to the point.

“Oïdas.”

“The Mayor! Why, he is a widower and nearly as old as myself.”

“What does it matter? He is rich and influential. Inarime will have a
handsome house,--you know that colonnaded building near the Palace?
Well, when a man has such a house as that to offer a woman, she need
not trouble to examine the wrinkles on his forehead or the crowsfeet
under his eyes, or whether his hair be grey or black or red. All things
are relative, Pericles, even youth and beauty. It depends on the purse.”

“But have you any proof that Kyrios Oïdas is disposed to think of my
daughter?”

“The best possible. He told me so to-night.”

Pericles started, and stared doubtingly at his brother.

“You do not credit me, I see, but it is true, I assure you. He
admires her, wants a wife, asked if she had a dowry, and notified his
willingness to demand her in marriage.”

“He is a rich man, undoubtedly,” Pericles slowly admitted, remembering
just then that Reineke had not started by considerations of the dowry.
“In his country women are bought,” he said to himself, “in ours their
husbands are purchased. It is merely an opinion on which side the
barter is more honourable.”

“You consent then to my calling to-morrow on Oïdas with an official
communication and recognition?”

“It is too soon,” Pericles pleaded.

“It is never too soon to marry your child well.”

“Perhaps you are right. I would have chosen a younger man. However,
do not precipitate matters. I must know more of this Oïdas. He is a
politician, and you know my feelings towards that class of men. It
is just possible he may be less disreputable and illiterate than the
general run. He cannot be an honourable man upon your own admission,
for he stooped to buy the influence of that reptile, Stavros.”

“True, but all politicians do so. The greater they are, the more
unscrupulous. It is part of their _métier_, as callousness to pain is
of the surgeon’s. You have studied history and I have not; then this
fact you must have learnt.”

“Sometimes the loose political mind may prove itself more keenly
apprehensive of correct deductions than that of the studiously trained
thinker,” Pericles rejoined, with a subtle smile. “Doubtless it is I
who am in error.”

“This is idle wandering. I’ll grant you anything in argument, only
grant me in turn the consideration of Oïdas’ proposals and his formal
reception.”

Pericles thought awhile, then rose and stretched his arms.

“There will be nothing incorrect in receiving him. I cannot settle
straight off to marry Inarime to him, but I agree with you that his
proposals are worth considering. He is not the man I should have
selected, and that is why I hesitate to compromise our honour. But he
can come. I will not coerce my child. It is for her to say whether he
will stay.”

This concession was more than Constantine had dared to hope for,
and his spirits rose to the point of exuberance next morning when
an invitation came from Madame Jarovisky’s for Inarime to attend an
afternoon party for young people given in honour of her daughter’s
birthday.

There were about twenty young ladies and mature little girls, with a
sprinkling of boys and youths from the military and naval schools, at
Madame Jarovisky’s when Inarime entered the rooms, escorted by her
father. The chaperons retired to the salon downstairs, to refresh
themselves with tea and return to their homes, or stay and watch the
youngsters disport and play. By and by Miltiades came, that prince of
masters of ceremonies, especially invited to conduct the cotillon, and
show the small rabble how to dance the mazurka. Could a hero object
to shine and lead, even in minute and giggling society? Heavens above
us! What would be the result of an entertainment in Athens without
Miltiades? Confusion, scare, and disgrace,--worse, the privation of its
most picturesque adornment, and its crown of military glory.

The young ladies of Athens were there in every stage, little women
dressed like dolls, flirting and pouting with grave little old men of
ten and twelve; girls in tutelage, breaking from their governess to
dance a riotous quadrille with the future defenders of their country
upon land and water; and lastly, the self-conscious and important
“demoiselles à marier,” who play Chopin’s Second Nocturne to the
desolation of those who understand Chopin, chatter ceaselessly in
indifferent French, draw flowers and keep albums for the collection of
all the heart-broken verses in European tongues. Into this lively and
flippant circle Inarime was at once whirled with voluble cordiality and
cries of frantic enthusiasm.

Mademoiselle Eméraude Veritassi was the presiding archangel, in the
artistic setting of the expensive Antoinette. The angels were Miss
Mary Perpignani, Sappho Jarovisky, Andromache Karapolos, Proserpine
Agiropoulos, and the young ladies of the American legation. Eméraude
was the key to the general mood,--she was captain of a pliable and
sensitive band of very amiable young marauders. She welcomed Inarime
avidly, with the frankest smile and a swift approval of her toilet. The
others clustered round her and somewhat bewildered her with this sudden
introduction to noisy unmeditative girlhood. Of the mind and ways of
girls she was savagely ignorant, we know, and all these laughing faces
and softly brilliant glances, turned upon her, shook her with surprise
and terror. Could it be that she was one of them and so aloof, so
absolutely unlike and out of sympathy with them? Joy and vigour were
abounding in them, the susceptible and intoxicating blood of youth and
its untamable pulses, gave fire to their eyes and chased reflection
from their minds. When they danced together, or with boys of their
own age, their steps sprang over the polished floor with the urgent
impetuosity of their years. When they stood near her, and panted and
laughed between their gasping speech, she felt as the Peri might,
gazing upon happiness afar.

She envied these absurd and frivolous maidens, envied them
their untroubled youth,--beside which her own looked sad and
grey-toned,--their free hearts and meaningless laughter, their
twinkling feet and innocent sentimentality.

“You do not dance,” said Eméraude, pausing beside her after a wild
waltz, with fluttering bosom, like a pursued bird.

“I have never danced. I have never met girls before,” Inarime answered,
with a sharp note of regret in her voice.

Imagine the consternation and the wonder on the faces around her.
Eméraude was naturally spokeswoman for the party. She expressed an
opinion that the conversation should be carried on in Greek instead of
French.

“Then we shall have to speak our best Greek,” cried Sappho, having
heard of Inarime’s learning. “Mademoiselle Selaka speaks the language
of Plutarch.”

“Oh, no,” exclaimed Inarime, with a deprecating smile. “I have
the current Athenian at your service. Except with my father, I am
accustomed to speak the rough brogue of our island.”

“There is just the faintest perceptible tinge of the Archipelago in
your accent,” affirmed Eméraude, authoritatively. “This is your first
visit to Athens?”

“My first.”

“Oh, are you not happy to be here?” carolled Andromache. “Athens--ah!
it is so lovely. I could not leave it.”

“Tell us of your life in Tenos,” said Eméraude, taking up the dominant
melody of the concerto, and at once the chorus of followers pressed
their captain’s demand with an inarticulate cry of accentuated
agreement.

“It is very simple. I read and walk with my father, and when not thus
occupied, I help Annunziata in housework or I write letters for the
villagers.”

“Annunziata! That is a pretty name. Italian?”

“She is Greek, of remotely Italian origin.”

“And why do you write letters for the villagers?” asked Sappho. “Can
they not write themselves?”

“None of the women in the villages of Lutra, Xinara, or Mousoulou can
write but myself.”

“How marvellous!” exclaimed Miss Perpignani, and the girls wore a look
of interjection.

“Are there goats?”

Inarime stared a little at such an obviously foolish question. Her
steady luminous gaze struck chill upon the volatile young circle, and
for an instant checked their chatter. Then some one broke the uneasy
silence.

“How about your dresses? You must leave Tenos when you want new
clothes. This pretty frock is surely Athenian.”

“Yes, that is because I am here, and my uncle wishes me to be dressed
like everybody else, but hitherto I have had my dresses made at Tenos.
They are well made too.”

“Not possible! Like ours, in the modern fashion?”

Inarime lightly scanned the costumes round her.

“I do not think Tenos could produce anything like these,” she said,
simply, “but then we would not know what to do with them over there.”

“Do you live far from the town?”

“Yes, a good way. It takes nearly three hours by mule.”

“I suppose you have no carriages in Tenos?”

“There are no roads to begin with, and in consequence no vehicles of
any sort. It is a very rough, wild place.”

“And now you have come to Athens to be married,” concluded Eméraude.
“Do you look forward to marriage?”

A dusky colour shot up into Inarime’s face like a hidden flame. She
fixed her eyes slowly on Mademoiselle Veritassi.

“If it is my father’s wish that I should marry, it will be my duty to
obey him, but I trust he will not ask it of me.”

Another look of wondering consternation flashed over the circle. Not
wish to marry! have a house of her own and take precedence of unmarried
girls! be somebody in social life, give parties and travel!

“I thought all girls liked the notion of getting married,” remarked
Miss Mary Perpignani. “It is so dull to be unmarried, not to be able to
go out alone, or to go to Antoinette’s and order what you like. Just
think how delightful it must be to be free, like a young man, and do
all sorts of lovely naughty things, dance twice if you like with the
handsomest officer without any one to tell you it is not _convenable_,
and read all the dreadful French novels. We poor girls are so harassed
with that horrid word _convenable_. To see little boys at the age of
ten allowed to stand on their heads and we, aching for liberty, not
allowed to budge at thirty if we are not married!”

“Oh, shocking to think of, as the English say,” cried Sappho, clapping
her hands to her ears to shut out the spoken description. “We are
martyrs, we unhappy girls.”

“Your faces belie your misery,” said Inarime, gravely.

“Que voulez-vous, Mademoiselle?” Eméraude retorted, gaily, “nous
autres, nous sommes á peu près Françaises. Il faut être bien mis et
savoir rire malgré tout. Avent de me tuer, je mettrai ma plus jolie
robe.”

“Oh, ma chère, ma chère,” the shocked angels chorussed. Then turning to
Inarime, one of them soothed her perplexity.

“Don’t pay any heed to the exaggerations of Eméraude. She likes to
frighten people. She talks that way, but she means nothing. Comme tu
sais blaguer, Eméraude.”

“Mais, point du tout. Je suis sérieuse. Qu’est ce que serait la vie
si l’on ne savait pas se moquer de ses chagrins, au lieu de s’en
attrister?” protested Eméraude.

“I applaud your sentiment. Cheerfulness I should imagine to be the
lesson of life and our highest aspiration,” said Inarime.

“It is not mine, assuredly,” cried Sappho. “My dream is excitement--oh,
but the excitement that consumes and fills up every hour, waking
and sleeping. I should adore being married to a man I hated, rich,
powerful and commanding, of whom I was desperately afraid, and to be
in love with a poor, divinely beautiful young officer. To think of
the thrilling terrors and consuming bliss of meetings at parties, at
theatres, in picture galleries, horribly shadowed by a jealous husband,
only time to whisper a hurried greeting and look into each other’s
eyes----”

Be assured this rash prospective sinner was in mind as innocent of a
sinister meaning as in limpid gaze. Mademoiselle Veritassi measured her
scornfully.

“You have probably been taking your first plunge into Feuillet in
secret, and are talking of what you do not in the least understand.
You would find your young officer a complete idiot, and his divinely
beautiful face would soon enough pall on you. Love, romantic or
otherwise, will not be my domain. I aspire to marry a man of moderate
intelligence, pliable, of the world and of the best tone, with the
doors of a foreign embassy open to him, whom I shall mould and lead,
and whose fortune I shall make. My dream is more legitimate, though
from the purely masculine point of view, hardly less incorrect than
Sappho’s.”

“And yours?” Andromache asked shyly of Inarime.

“Mine? I have none. I have not felt the need for excitement or novelty.
My quiet, uneventful life has hitherto amply satisfied me--until
lately, until quite lately,” she added, with a slight break in her
voice.

Mademoiselle Veritassi scrutinised her through narrowed lids, and
smiled imperceptibly.

“You speak German, I am told, fluently. I presume you had a governess.”

“No, my father was my tutor. He taught me everything that I know.”

“Your father! and no governess! And embroidery, music, drawing and the
rest?” Mademoiselle Veritassi gasped.

“I know nothing of such graceful accomplishments. With books I am
acquainted, and though I have never measured my speed with any
other girl’s, my father tells me I am a swift runner. But girls so
brilliantly finished as you will laugh to hear me speak of running.”

“No, no. It is charming. A modern Atlanta. You are truly a divine
creature. As for us, our futile accomplishments are mere gossamer
wings to skim to social heights for which we are destined. There they
drop from us, and their instability is their only charm. Yours are of
solider weight, with the merit of corresponding permanence.”

“It is kind of you to reassure me thus, but I know my value. I am only
a bookish peasant.”

“Eméraude is right,” Miss Perpignani cooed, caressingly. “You are a
divine creature--beautiful as a picture.”

Inarime glanced pitifully at the youthful leader whose voice to these
girls was as the voice of fame. Her own intellect was rare, and her
knowledge profound, and yet she was humiliated and acutely conscious of
her inferiority to this dainty damsel, who fluttered and flirted her
fragile fan with inimitable grace, and wore her girlhood with an air of
sovereignty that came of twenty years’ sway at home and abroad. We may
divine that it was the extreme fastidiousness of the heiress and only
child that allowed her to reach twenty unclaimed.

“You have but to wish it to outstrip us all on our own ground. But, I
beseech you, spare us. Think what rivalry with you would mean for us.
The sun above the stars. Be content with your beauty and your books,
and do not ask to descend to the mere social arena. For me, I ask
nothing better than to be your friend.”

The little ones had come to the end of their hour of rhythmic movement,
and Miltiades, beaming in the splendour of black and gold, was
officiously telling off the couples for the cotillon. He approached the
girls, and asked if Mademoiselle Selaka would dance. Inarime shook her
head.

“Do, do, dear Inarime--may I?” pleaded Mademoiselle Veritassi. “It will
give us all such pleasure to watch you.”

“Yes, yes,” chorused the followers.

“But I cannot dance, alas!” Inarime murmured.

“Your voice is like velvet, and yet clear though so softly murmurous.
Do not fear. It is quite simple. Pray be persuaded. Captain Karapolos
will guide you.”

Inarime suffered herself to be led across the room to the spot where
the couples were noisily forming themselves. Just then she saw Rudolph
Ehrenstein enter with the Baroness von Hohenfels on his arm, who
surveyed the young people through her _face-à-main_ with a complacent
smile. The smile intensified when Inarime came under its rays, while
Rudolph and Andromache were looking far too eloquently at each other.
Inarime understood the mute avowal of momently wedded orbs, and a
thrill of remembered delight and anguish swept over her like a blast.

O bliss too fleeting, and O pain too sweet!




CHAPTER XXII.

FORESHADOWING A CRISIS IN RUDOLPH’S CAREER.


The constant dropping of the waters of opposition upon the stone of
Pericles’ obstinacy showed the proverbial result. It was worn away
in a few days, at the end of which time he yielded to his brother’s
persuasions and admitted that a daughter is a ticklish charge for one
sane man, only armed with the controlling influences of a father.
His girl, he at first argued, was not quite as other girls--she was
steadfast, sincere and earnest. He had not yet perceived any tendency
in her to the sex’s frantic moodishness and dizzy variations. True,
the god Cupid had mastered her at a single glance with alarming
urgence. But an antique-modern Greek found excuse in his heart for
the headstrong vagaries of the eternally youthful god. He announced
himself ready to transfer his responsibilities to Oïdas, if he proved
acceptable to Inarime. He was not exuberant at the prospect, nor in the
least hurry. But he permitted Oïdas to visit with prospectively nuptial
intentions, and left the rest to the gods.

Oïdas came. He came very often, hardly noticed by Inarime, beyond the
fact that his coming provided her with flowers, and that he frequently
conducted her to the theatre where she heard the surfeiting honey
strains of Bellini and Verdi, and to the Saturday concerts at the
Parnassus Club of which he was president, where Bellini and Verdi were
also in the ascendant.

“Have you any feeling towards Kyrios Oïdas?” her father once ventured
to ask.

“Feeling! I have not remarked him specially. He is polite, but I should
imagine not interesting,” Inarime replied.

“Ah!” interjected Selaka, with an air of partial self-commiseration.
Having made up his mind after prolonged doubting upon so minor a point,
to accept Oïdas for a son-in-law, it was disconcerting to learn that
the chosen one had made none but a very dubious impression upon the
principal personage of the duet.

He lightly dismissed the fact as another proof of the singular and
incorrigible perversity of woman, not even to be counteracted by such
anomalous training and education as he had given this particular one.

Not to be out of the fashion, the Baroness von Hohenfels had
rapturously taken up the new beauty. Inarime was frequently invited to
the Austrian Embassy, and her acquaintance with Mademoiselle Veritassi
and her band progressed to intimacy. The delight of joyous youth that
lives unthinkingly upon the beating of its own pulses struck dormant
rays from her closed nature. She shook off the shadow of her own calm
past and emerged from gloom, a radiant being, now and then weighted
with her recent heavy bereavement, only to rebound again into realms
of intoxicating instability. The friction of her natural forces with
these laughing creatures urged her upward, and a return to the desolate
solitude of a world unblessed by the presence of her lover, left her
amazed, incredulous and giddy.

The trashy music she had heard struck her as enchantment, until
Mademoiselle Veritassi chilled her enthusiasm.

“Do you sometimes go to the theatre?” she queried.

“Here?”

“Yes.”

“Mon Dieu! When I want to go to the theatre, I go to Paris or Vienna,”
said Mademoiselle Veritassi, superciliously.

“Is it not good here?”

“It is vulgar rubbish--good enough for the Athenians, but not for those
who have heard music and seen acting. My child, you have yet to see a
theatre.”

This was food for reflection, and another proof of her inferiority to
these bewildering nymphs of society. The next time Oïdas made soft
proposals touching Verdi and Bellini, Inarime curtly declined them.

“I have intimated to Kyrios Oïdas my entire willingness to receive him
into my family,” said Pericles one day to his brother. “It now remains
for him to try his fortunes with Inarime, to whom I shall previously
communicate his intentions. But I desire that the matter may be
speedily settled. This frivolous, noisy existence wearies me. I yearn
for my books and the quiet of my mountain home.”

“But are you not pledged to attend the meeting of the German School
which takes place in ten days?”

“I will come back for it. Besides, Annunziata writes for my immediate
presence. The steward is not giving satisfaction.”

Inarime entered, modernised beyond recognition in a flimsy grey silk
gown slashed with crimson and shaded greens, a belt from which depended
ribbons of these mixed hues that floated in the breeze and arrested the
distracted glance, with hair which swelled above the mild brow to a
pyramidal crown of shadow and threw out bronze and bluish lights, its
rippling massy softness in complete harmony with the equable, studious
face.

“Why thus early decked in bird of Paradise hues?” laughed Selaka,
quietly.

“Mademoiselle Veritassi and her brother are to call for me shortly.”

“Ah, I forgot. You grow dissipated, my dear. It seems to me your books
are now quite forsaken for the society of these chattering young
persons. Voices, voices, voices, and meaningless laughter I hear as I
pass you in the salon. What in heaven’s name have they to say?”

“Well, not much that is worth listening to, I am afraid,” Inarime
admitted, with a little apologetic smile. “And they fly from one
subject to another so quickly, exchange interjections and telegraphic
remarks, scattered phrase with sharp hiatus till I am compelled to give
up all hope of following them, having missed their airy education. But
the sound of their voices is pretty to the ear--that is, not the sound
itself, but its suggestions.”

“Then you are satisfied that you have enough amiable reminiscences
to carry back with you to the solitudes of Tenos?” Pericles
half-commented, just looking at Constantine to signify his wish to be
left alone with his daughter.

Inarime sighed. Tenos seemed so very far away from her.

“We are going back, my child. Do you not rejoice?”

“Back! So soon! You have enjoyed your visit, father?”

“It is for you to decide. Your pleasure is mine, dearest.”

Her face clouded. Confronted with her ruthlessly severed heart the
phrase sounded hollow.

“I have almost forgotten that I was unhappy,” she whispered.

Pericles gazed at her in amazement. He would have staked his life on
this girl’s stability and firmness. Here was a curious proof of the
inexplicable lightness and variability of the feminine temper. Who was
to sound its depths or follow its breathless changes? Man, he concluded
(not originally, who can be original on the theme?) treads a mine when
he essays to read the book of woman, even in the chapter of his own
daughter. The simplest page holds promise of explosion and surprise.
Philosophy shrinks from the task, as beyond the hard unimaginative male
intelligence.

“You wish to remain here?” he interrogated.

“I think I do,” she breathed through her teeth reluctantly. “To return
to Tenos would mean so much for me. It was good of you, father, to give
me this change.”

“Well, well,” Selaka interposed, with a disappointed air. “Happily
the emotions of your strange sex are ever ready to come to your aid.
Sorrow is not incurable, because you answer so readily to the spur
of distraction. Perhaps you will bend as compliantly to the sound of
wedding-bells.”

“No, I will not,” she retorted, harshly.

“If I ask it, Inarime?” he bent forward.

“It would not be fair. You have the right to dispose of me, I know, but
I ought not to be tried beyond my strength.”

“Do not speak as if it were possible I should be other than your
best friend, with your interests exclusively my own,” protested
Selaka, affectionately. “But it is the duty of the old to remember
the future for the young. Marriage is the natural termination of a
girl’s irresponsible existence. I, as your guardian, am bound to find
you a suitable mate. You mentioned just now that here at Athens you
had forgotten that you were unhappy. That struck me as a singularly
pregnant observation--it felicitously summed up your sex. What then
can there be objectionable in my proposal to settle you permanently at
Athens?”

He awaited her reply as if he expected compliance.

“I spoke of change preluding a return to the old life. It pleased me
to feel that I had pushed it away from me for awhile, that I was aloof
from it, beholding entirely new scenes and hearing foreign voices. That
change I know I wanted to keep me from a merely whimpering discontent.
I wish to be strong, father, and hate to succumb to weakness.”

“Prove your wish for strength by casting from you sentimental
chains. Your objection is purely sentimental. Remember the lesson
of the ancients. We perceive the ideal, and hasten to make our best
compromise with the actual. Love is the unattainable draught. We are
sometimes permitted to bring our lips within measurable distance from
the rim of the bowl, and then it is withdrawn. Some of us are given one
sip of the nectar and must go thirsty ever afterwards. We live the life
of the flesh, which is common and crude enough, and nourish our starved
spirit upon memory. That is the lesson of experience, but we need not,
for that, feel ourselves curtained off from cheerfulness and contented
labour.”

He watched her attentively. All the light had fled from her face.

“You wish me to marry Kyrios Oïdas,” she said, after a pause.

“You have rightly guessed. He is not a scholar, I have to admit, and a
modern politician does not fill me with admiration; but he is wealthy,
and will take care of you. It will be for you to shine, and I dare say
he will be proud enough of you.”

“If he were a scholar I could understand,” she exclaimed. “But simple
money! Father, you are not material. You are not tired of me?”

“Tired? I? Of you?”

Pericles fondled her hand, and laughed.

“But you wish me to leave you for this man, who is only rich.”

“I shall not live forever, and a husband will be your proper protector.
Poverty would not be a recommendation in a suitor, I imagine.”

“But you are not so old, and there are long days before us.”

“Who knows? I have been warned of late that I am not very strong. It
is decided. You must marry.”

“Kyrios Oïdas?”

“I am compromised--pledged.”

She bent her head, and at that moment the bell announced the arrival of
her friends.

The Baroness von Hohenfels, hearing of Selaka’s intended departure and
a meditated return for the meeting of the German School, called and
warmly pressed Inarime to stay with her during M. Selaka’s absence.
She would not hear of refusal. There was a room at the Embassy at
Mademoiselle Selaka’s disposal; her friends would be desolated to lose
her so soon--in fact, she must come.

“You will not have time to miss me, Inarime,” Pericles sang out
cheerily from the doorstep, as she drove away in the Baroness’s
carriage, her engagement still hanging in the balance of indecision.
She had some faint hope of consulting the baroness, and seeking
strength and resolution in her judgment.

Inarime took the Austrian Embassy by storm. That evening Rudolph
returned from a short absence at Vienna, where he had been bound
on pre-nuptial affairs, intending to startle his family by the
announcement of his engagement to Andromache and his determination to
marry immediately. Tongues were already set wagging, and vague and
disconcerting reports had reached the baron and baroness. But their
faith was built on the genius of Mademoiselle Veritassi. Rudolph might
waver and glory in other chains of captivity, but he would end by
sullenly admitting the superlative charm and conquering force of the
girl of fashion.

He came back, saw Inarime, fell prostrate in new adoration, tugged
with feeble heart-strings by the soft glimmer of the March violets he
remorsefully shrank from seeking.

The diplomatic baron, too, stumbled into captivity, assisted in his
fall by the baroness, herself under the spell of Inarime’s beauty.
Indeed, not one of the three had shown a spark of resistance.

The heavy ambassador danced hourly attendance upon the young goddess,
and under her glance, sparkled, astounded spectators by feats of
chivalry and semi-veiled gallantry that turned the clock of time for
him back by twenty years. Ah, but his enslavement was not a serious
defection. There was the wretched Rudolph, held breathless by his own
faithlessness and variable heart-beats. The feeling he gave Andromache
was but a rushlight, compared with this blaze of fire. He slept not,
nor did he eat. Life died within him out of Inarime’s presence, and was
flame in his members when she was near him. The old fancy dropped from
him like a toy; this was a consuming need, a poignant hunger with his
uprising, and a hunger with added thirst upon his lying down.

To Inarime he was merely a dull and pretty boy to whom it behoved her
to show some kindness and forbearance. His gloomy blue eyes fixed
silently upon her, vaguely irritated her, and she put command into
hers to check their persistent following. Still she preferred him to
his uncle, whose gallant attentions and man-of-the-world deference
vexed and fretted her. His was a novel language to her, and she
hesitated to read it lest there might be studied insult beneath it.
From the baroness she heard of Rudolph’s unfortunate entanglement
with Andromache, and upon pressure of confidence, admitted her
father’s desire to see her married to Oïdas, whom she did not like
or even moderately esteem. She imagined Rudolph forcibly separated
from Andromache, and read in that fact his evident unhappiness,
which appealed to her for sympathy and touched her with the wand of
brotherhood.

Photini was invited to play for her pleasure, and this introduction to
the highest music was astonishment to her. Her fine nature recognised
mastery, though the riddle was unexplained to her senses. She could
not at a leap mount such heights of sound, where the melodies seemed
to disport in waves and thunder, with sprays of foam and the facets of
jewels. She approached Photini for help.

Photini measured her mercilessly with her formidable gaze,--dwelt on
her physical exquisiteness, and smiled sardonically.

“You have beauty, mademoiselle. Be thankful for that, and leave art to
those who have souls to comprehend it.”

“Finger-tips as well, and perseverance,” said Inarime, archly.

“Oh, I see. You are not a doll. Well, come to see me any morning, and
I’ll play till your ears ache.”

Photini turned on her heel, and beckoned to Rudolph, who gloomily
trotted after her into the conservatory.

Selaka returned to Athens for the meeting of German archæologists, and
was cordially invited to stay for a few days at the Austrian Embassy.




CHAPTER XXIII.

A MEETING ON THE ACROPOLIS.


March came and went in a whirlwind of storm and rain that lasted a
fortnight. Every one susceptible to atmospheric influences was ill and
unhappy, and the wind sobbed and shrieked like the ghosts of centuries
crying to be laid. And now, on this first evening, the storm went down,
with a little sigh running through the quieted air, like a child’s
remembered sob in dreaming. The orange and lemon trees were in full
blossom, and the Palace gardens wore “the glory and the freshness of a
dream.”

Gustav Reineke stood between the pillars of the Parthenon and watched
the sky after sunset. The zenith was clear purple upon which light
clouds traced along milky way with edges torn into threadlets of white
that curled and lost themselves, shading off to rose upon the eastern
horizon. He watched cream deepen into orange, and spread a mist upon
the blue, and the azure faint into pearly grey, while the cirrhus arch
shifted itself slowly, and dropped behind the hills. The west was a
lake of unsullied gold, so pure that the eye could follow the birth of
cloud-stains upon it and the flames of crimson and orange striking fire
from its heart. Over Lycabettus shone a tremulous radiance, half pink,
half opal, and above the blue was shot with silver and green. Upon the
hills the shadows were sharply defined by broken lines of light, and
the sea under Salamis was a waveless blue gloom.

Gustav had done brave battle with woe, and wore his sorrow nobly.
There was nothing of the crushed air of the love-sick swain about
him. He stood up straight, and faced the light of day with mournful
calm eyes and strong lips, patiently awaiting the revocation of his
sentence or its confirmation, and for the moment gave himself entirely
up to the study of archæology. He had come that morning to Athens upon
invitation, to attend the meeting of the German School of Archæology.

While Gustav is sky-gazing with an open volume of Pausanias in his
hand, another young friend of ours is crossing Constitution Square
with the intention of strolling towards the Acropolis. Ten days back
in Athens, and not one glimpse of Andromache! Very unlike a lover
restored to the arms of his mistress does he look, sauntering along
with his hands in his pockets and an expression of miserable perplexity
on his face. An airy, wide-awake individual, with an anemone in his
button-hole, and a glass in his eye, accosts him noisily, and quickly
scanning him, remarks aloud upon the utter dejection of his air.

“Ah, Tonton, je suis épris--cette fois pour de bon,” cried Rudolph,
desirous of horrifying somebody else as well as himself.

“Encore? Est-ce possible? Vrai?” ejaculated Agiropoulos.

“C’est très vrai.”

“Allons donc, mon cher! Faut-il te féliciter? Epris pour la troisième
fois dans autant de mois! Mais c’est effrayant!”

Rudolph’s eyes swept the landscape in dreary assent. He thought it very
frightful indeed.

“Pauvre Photini! Pauvre Andromaque,” cried Agiropoulos, taking off his
hat and running his plump hand over his well-shorn head, “et pauvre--la
dernière. Elle sera toujours à plaindre, celle-là.”

“Dis plutôt, pauvre Rudolph!” said Ehrenstein, ruefully.

“Eh, je le dis, mon cher, de bon cœur,” said Agiropoulos, with a
reassuring nod and an enigmatic smile, as he turned on his heel, and
stopped to discuss Ehrenstein’s lamentable susceptibility with his next
acquaintance.

Can this really be our fastidious Rudolph, who has held the above
indelicate dialogue with a man he hitherto professed to despise? Has
he grown in a few months both cynical and hardened? But the cynicism
was only surface deep. This search for an anchor to his affections
and the discovery he had made that his emotions and his judgment were
unreliable, his heart as unstable as water, wrecked all self-esteem,
and left him in a battered condition of mind. He felt as if he had been
morally whipped by scorpions, and every nerve within him was bruised.

First Photini, then Andromache, dear, sweet Andromache! how his heart
bled for her! that he should be so unworthy of her! And She? the other
She! the final, unattainable She, whose looks ran fire through his
veins and held him in humble unexacting servitude?

He came out to walk and meditate. Could he have chosen a more
favourable road for meditation than the wide avenue of pepper-trees,
that leads by a gentle upward slope to the cactus-bordered hill, upon
which the glorious Parthenon rests? Of the nature of his reflections,
as he strolled along that famous route, I cannot say much. I imagine
they were hazy, like the inarticulate speech of an infant. He wanted
something, but for the life of him he could not have put that something
into shape or definite speech. Like Hercules, his way was barred by
two female forms--only one of whom, however, offered him a direct
invitation. And Photini?

And thus these two met, and falling into accidental conversation, which
resulted in an exchange of cards, Rudolph learnt that this was Herr
Reineke, the distinguished Greek scholar, whose card his aunt had found
awaiting her on her return from a drive that morning. Anything was
better to Rudolph than that meditation in pursuit of which he had come
out expressly, so he warmly pressed Reineke to come back to the Embassy
with him. Reineke took a fancy to the frank and high-bred lad, and
gladly consented to do so.

On their way he learnt some very original and curious views upon the
Ancient Greeks, and his national vanity was flattered by hearing this
discontented youth describe the Modern Greeks as worse than the Jews,
and express his entire sympathy with the Turks--a thorough gentlemanly
race in his opinion. Gustav assented, but claimed an exception for one
or two of the modern Greeks, and at this point they reached the Embassy.

The young man found everybody out, so Rudolph carried off Reineke
to a little salon only used in private life. Here the baroness wrote
her letters, and here Inarime had sat that morning with a book and a
pencil in her hand. Rudolph ordered coffee and cigars, and selected for
himself Inarime’s seat. He took up her book, and remembered enough of
his Greek to know that it was a volume of the Sicilian Idyllists. He
recognised the names Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, but the rest was a
blank to him. In turning over the leaves, a sheet of paper dropped out,
and this contained writing. He examined it carefully, and was struck
with its exquisite caligraphy.

“Can you read Greek--modern?” he asked of Gustav, who was looking idly
out of the window.

“Yes,” he answered, turning his face round.

“Please translate that for me,” cried Rudolph excitedly. Gustav
extended his hand for the paper, glanced at it carelessly, and read
half-finished verses in classical Greek, which baldly translated read
something like this:--


     “O let me not in this grief fail.
       Dear Gods, upon me glance!
     For hearts with troubles slowly veil
       Hope in remembrance.

     “I would not that thy life were sad
       Because of our drear fate,
     Nor would I have thee wholly glad
       While I am forced to wait.”


The lines ended here, and Gustav read them over again, a dim
presentiment quickening his pulses. Selaka had shown him Inarime’s
writing, beautiful, finished, like those delicate manuscripts which we
have inherited from the old days of cloistered leisure. Surely this was
the work of the same hand, and the quiet sadness of the verses swept
him like a message from the dead.

“Do you know who wrote this?” he asked slowly.

“Yes,” Rudolph answered, indisposed to be communicative.

“A lady?”

“You think the handwriting a lady’s?”

“I do. I fancy I have seen it before.”

“Let me see. Were you not staying for a short time on one of the Greek
islands?”

“Yes; Tenos.”

“Then you perhaps met her. Oh, I am sure of it now,” cried Rudolph,
springing up and glaring into Reineke’s face.

Reineke said nothing, but bent his eyes reverently upon the sheet of
paper. Might he steal it? If he had been alone he would have kissed it.

“Why don’t you answer me, Herr Reineke?” Rudolph persisted.

“Answer you? What?”

“There is somebody else, I know. I learnt it the other night. Tell me.
Is it you?” he demanded.

“Herr Ehrenstein, is it too much to beg an explanation of these
somewhat enigmatic questions?” retorted Gustav.

But Ehrenstein eagerly noted that his eyes never once left the piece of
paper in his hand.

“It is unworthy to trifle with me in this way. I see that you know her,
and that you understand too well the meaning of those lines. They are
perhaps addressed to you.”

“And if it were so?” said Gustav, coldly.

“It would be better to know it at once. Anything would be better than
this suspense. Listen, I will tell you something I overheard one night
in a conversation between my uncle and her father.”

“Her father? Is Selaka here?” cried Gustav.

“He is. And so is she.”

“She! here? In this house? Now?” exclaimed Gustav, jumping up.

“She is out now with my aunt. They will be back soon.”

“Good God!” muttered Reineke, sitting down, and holding his head in his
hands. “Should I go--or shall I stay?”

“Then you are the man. Listen to what I heard last night. My uncle told
Selaka that he would be glad to see his daughter my wife--oh, don’t
fly into a rage, we are not engaged, and I see by your angry smile you
don’t think it likely to come to pass. Well, Selaka said he liked me,
and in his estimation, my birth and social position were a set-off
against my deficiencies in classical lore. But there is an impediment.
His daughter has recently made the heaviest sacrifice a woman can make
for her father, and he could not pain her by asking her to choose a
successor to the lover she gave up for him. You are the lover, I know.
Why did she give you up?”

“Because I am a Turk.”

“A Turk! You!”

Rudolph burst into a harsh laugh, and stopped suddenly when his ear
caught the sound of a carriage drawn up outside. He glanced quickly out
of the window.

“She has come, Monsieur le Sultan,” he announced, sarcastically.

Both men stood still, and rapid steps approached. Through the half-open
door the flutter of silken raiment was heard brushing the floor, and
the baroness stood before them, looking courteous interrogation.

“This is Herr Reineke,” said Rudolph, in German.

“Oh, M. Reineke,” the baroness exclaimed, in French. “This is indeed
a pleasure. You will stay and dine with us in a friendly way. No
ceremony. The baron will keep you company in morning attire. It will be
delightful, as the unexpected always is.”

Gustav declined politely, and glanced beyond her. There stood Inarime
with a look of unmistakable rapture and alarm upon her face.

The baroness introduced them; they bowed, but did not dare trust
themselves to speech or hand-clasp.

“Must you go at once, Herr Reineke?” asked the baroness, remarking the
glory on his face.

“Madame, I must,” he said, and Rudolph saw that Inarime started
violently, as if the sound of his voice thrilled her like pain.

Reineke shook hands with the baroness, not conscious that he was making
all sorts of impossible promises, and then turned silently to the
mute, harrowing eloquence of Inarime’s gaze, with one as unbearable in
its piercing tenderness. Rudolph accompanied him downstairs and said
nothing until Reineke held out his hand at the door.

“No, I cannot touch your hand, Herr Reineke. We must not meet again,”
he said, grimly.

“As you wish, Herr Ehrenstein. I am sorry for you, but, as you see, I
have not much cause for self-congratulation for myself.”

Rudolph said nothing, and flung away from him.

In the little salon he found Inarime alone, with her head bent down
upon the table over her folded arms.

“You love that man, Fraulein?” he asked in German, which she spoke more
fluently than French.

“I do,” she said, simply, hardly troubled by the impertinence of the
question.

“And there is no chance--none--for me?”

“I do not understand you, Herr Ehrenstein.”

Did she even hear him, as she stared out with that intense look
strained beyond her prison through the bright streets traversed by
Gustav?

“I, too, love you, Fraulein. I would die for you. You have taken from
me my rest, my happiness, my self-respect. Everything I yield to
you--honour, manhood, independence. Gladly will I accept slavery at
your bidding. I care for nothing but you. Is there no hope for me? Your
father will approve my suit.--_He_ is banished.”

Inarime gazed scorn and loathing upon him. There were hardly words
strong enough with which to reject such an offer, so made and at such a
time.

“Leave me, Herr Ehrenstein. You force me abruptly to terminate my stay
under your uncle’s roof.”

She turned her back upon him, and when he broke out into fierce and
incoherent apologies, she swept past him out of the room.




CHAPTER XXIV.

A DRAUGHT FROM CIRCE’S CUP.


There was no hope for it. Harmony fled the Austrian Embassy. It had
already been bruited that young Ehrenstein was inconveniently demanded
by a bloodthirsty warrior, whose sister he had jilted in a scandalous
way. The report reached Selaka’s ear, and he looked askance upon the
perfidious youth. At first the baron dismissed the affair with a laugh,
then, upon scandal mounting higher, and taking a shriller tone, he
questioned Rudolph, and being a gentleman, expressed himself in very
strong terms upon the young reprobate’s conduct.

Rudolph had sulked and fretted and made everybody around him only a
degree less uncomfortable than himself. Twice he had started to go to
Andromache and confess the full extent of his iniquity, but he had not
had the courage to face the ordeal. If she should cry, or reproach
him, or meet him with sad silence! it would be equally unbearable, and
there would be nothing left for him but to go away and cut his throat.
What was the good of anything? Life was a blunder, a fret, a torment.
Without any evil in him, kindly, pure, sweet natured, here was he
involved in a mesh of inextricable troubles, behaving to a dear and
innocent child like an arrant villain. And all the while his heart
bled for her, and in any moment left him by the haunting thought of
Inarime, he was pursued by the soft pain of Andromache’s pretty eyes.

But every one blamed him, and all Athens spoke of him as a heartless
scoundrel. The baroness, who was coldly condemnatory, suggested a
return to Austria. The baron, sarcastic, plagued him in the “I warned
you” tone.

“You are much too sentimental and susceptible, Rudolph, for a life of
idleness. You have yet to learn the art of trifling gracefully and
uncompromisingly. Remember, a man has not to choose between being
a victim or a brute. You have proved yourself both to that little
Athenian--first the victim and then the brute. Now, my advice to
you is, go back to Rapoldenkirchen. Meditate instructively upon the
excellent advantages you have had here, and resolve to continue your
education in matters feminine with the married ladies. Avoid girls
as you would avoid poison, until you are ready to fix yourself in
reasonable harness with one particular girl, whom I advise you to
choose as little as possible like yourself. Vienna or Paris will be
of infinite service to you just now, and if you like, I could use
my influence to obtain you a diplomatic post. As long as you remain
in this state of lamentable idleness, so long will your life be
precarious.”

But this excellent counsel had fallen on dull ears. An hour after
Inarime’s rejection, Rudolph started to go to Andromache, and instead
of cutting through Academy Street, as he should have done, he turned up
towards the barrack, and before even he was aware of the propelling
instinct that pushed him, he was knocking at Photini’s door.

“Is Mademoiselle Natzelhuber visible?” he asked of Polyxena, with an
indifference of look and tone not at all assumed.

“She is upstairs, if that is what you mean,” cried Polyxena, and left
him to shut the door behind him.

He walked up the steep stone stairs without a sign of hurry or purpose,
and rapped listlessly at Photini’s door. In response to a loud “Come
in,” he entered, and found Photini in the midst of her cats and dogs,
reading the “Palingenesia.” She threw away the shabby little newspaper,
and made room for him on the sofa beside her, eyeing him with a look of
sharp scrutiny.

“Well?” she said.

“I am most abjectly miserable, Photini,” he said, and sat down beside
her, staring at the floor.

“You look it, my friend.”

“I suppose so. Photini, I want you to let me stay with you.”

“Stay with me! What the deuce do you mean?”

“Just what I say. There are no words to describe my wretchedness. I am
sick of everything and everybody. You, at least, won’t criticise or
blame. Your own life has not been so successful that you need censure
very harshly the blunders of mine.”

He looked at her drearily, unnotingly, and yet he felt drawn to her by
an immense personal sympathy and a kind of remembered affection that
nothing could ever quite obliterate.

“Oh, for that, I am not disposed to censure any one but the smug
hypocrites, who talk religion and virtue until one longs to fling
something in their faces. For the idiots I have a tremendous weakness,
I confess.”

“You care a little for me, don’t you, Photini?” Rudolph cried, like a
forsaken child.

Photini moved towards him, and gathered him into her arms.

“I love you furiously, you wretched boy,” she exclaimed, and held him
to her. “But just because you are an idiot, you are not to pay any heed
to it.”

Rudolph for answer flung his arms round her, laid his head upon her
bosom, and burst into wild hysteric sobs.

“Oh, you baby!” shouted Photini, trying to shake him off, but he only
clung to her the more convulsively, and tightened his clasp of her
until she could hardly breathe.

“Finish! this is absurd. What has happened to you, child?”

“Everybody is against me,” he said, striving hard to choke back his
tears. “I hate myself. I have made a mess of everything, and I wish I
were dead.”

“That is why you have come to me, I suppose. If you are destined to be
damned in the next world, you are willing to begin the operation in
this,” said Photini, drily.

“I want to stay with you. If you repulse me, Photini, I swear I’ll go
straightway and blow my brains out.”

“It would not be much worse.”

“Than staying with you?”

“Yes, than staying with me. The one would be followed by an inquest
and a funeral--and behold a swift and respectable end. The other--my
friend, have you measured its consequences?”

“Yes; we should have a great deal of music all to ourselves. We might
go away to France or Algiers, and I should forget Athens.”

“No, you would not. There is no such thing as forgetfulness until you
take to drink, and then you only forget when you are drunk. The instant
you become sober, memory probes your empty heart more strongly than
ever.”

“Then we will drink together, Photini,” cried Rudolph, recklessly.
“Give me some brandy.”

“I will not. I insist on your going back to that silly chit you’ve
treated so badly. Dry her eyes--they are very pretty eyes, my friend
Rudolph, and a man might be less agreeably employed. She’ll soon
forgive you if you manage to look penitent enough. I boxed her ears
once, and I like her all the better for it. Tell her an old woman who
loves you sent you back to her.”

“Photini, you are not old,” protested Rudolph, disinclined to speak of
Andromache to her. “Come back to the point. Will you have me? You say
you love me.”

“Rudolph, you are an ass. Don’t you see that I am trying to save you?
What does it matter for myself? You, Agiropoulos, another,--it is all
the same. My life is blotted, ruined, disfigured past redemption.
One _liaison_ more or less cannot practically affect me. But with
you it is different. You are a delicately-trained boy, of fastidious
tastes. You are unfit to battle with the coarser elements of life. A
robuster _morale_ and a less dainty nature than yours can buffet and
wrestle with brutal conditions, and be none the worse for a hundred
false steps, but you will sink irretrievably upon the first. Vice
sits indifferently well on some of us, and on others most deplorably.
That is why women sink so much more rapidly than men. Despair and
self-contempt are stones that hang fatally round their necks, and
this,” she said, pointing to a flask of brandy, “helps them to carry
the weight until they are crushed by it.”

“It will help me, too, I’ve no doubt,” said Rudolph.

“It is from that I would save you, and from the rest. It is not my
habit to express my opinions. I despise people too much to talk
seriously to them, but I am not only a musical machine in the lucid
pauses of a toper. I have thought a little, too, and I know what I have
lost.”

She was walking up and down the room with her hands joined behind her,
and there was a glow upon her strange face that made it almost noble.
When she had finished, she stood in front of Rudolph, scanned him
closely, and asked:

“Are you going? I have had quite enough of this sort of thing.”

“I am not going, Photini. My mind is made up. I will stay with you. Be
kind to me. Say you want me.”

“I must not, for then I could not bring myself to give you up. Go away,
and think over it. Mind, I would far rather you did not come back, and
I think I should be able to kiss with gratitude a note from you telling
me you had gone back to that girl.”

“You will get no such note from me, for I am going to stay now,”
Rudolph exclaimed, impetuously.

“You are a fool. There, I would have saved you--now, it is as heaven
wills it. But please remember this. When you come to repent this step,
as you will surely in a week, a month, or a year, have the goodness not
to bluster and expend your rage on me, or lay your folly to my account.”

Rudolph laughed bitterly.

“I think, mademoiselle, you would very soon make short work of me and
my bluster and rage,” he said.

“Well, yes, I believe I should be able for that emergency.”

“Photini, will you play me the ‘Barcarolle’?” Rudolph asked, as he
rubbed his cheek caressingly against her arm.

She stooped over him, kissed his hair and forehead, and their lips met
in a burning kiss--Rudolph’s first.




CHAPTER XXV.

AGAMEMNON AND IPHIGENIA.


We can imagine how the fabric, sedulously raised by Constantine’s
pursuit of his family’s fortune and advancement, tottered, shook, and
fell utterly to pieces upon that one exchanged look between Inarime
and Gustav. He in the world, and she the wife of another man! She
loathed herself that such should have been deemed possible of her. She
acknowledged her father’s right to her obedience, and it was difficult
for her to imagine her will in disjunction from his. But surely there
are limits to a daughter’s obligations--most wise limits set by nature,
whose laws are still more imperative than man’s. We may defy the laws
of man, and sometimes their defiance is proof of nobler instinct. But
the laws of nature--these are inexorable, and her punishments are
fatally swift. Body and mind were set in revolution against this cold
commercial alliance. Her soul in arms told her that it would be a
bodily degradation under which her mind would inevitably sink.

She had been trained to reason and to think, to hold her words in
subjection to her reason, and restrain the impulsiveness of her sex.
Expediency, she had been taught, may be a qualified virtue, though
founded on the meanest basis, and she had been recommended to weigh
its component parts in particular cases, before pronouncing judgment.
Hitherto she had been wise to detect the logical issues of any
situation presented to her for the reading, and thus had gained, in the
mind of the villagers, the reputation of a wise young counsellor, whose
head was filled with all the natural precepts of sagacity. But that
swift, immediate contact with flame and fire, the frantic surrender to
an untried glance, threw her back upon herself, with shaken faith, in
the grasp of wavering moods of stupefaction and self-contempt lit by
the lamp of burning bliss.

She saw her folly but did not repudiate it--the goddesses of old had
yielded to the sovereign passion upon as little pressure. One of the
features of Immortality is its royal dispensation with the tedious
form of wooing invented by the weak mortals. Nineteen years of a
purity as glacial as Artemis’ before she had given that one kiss to
the sleeping boy, were as an unremembered dream, blotted from her mind
without regret or shame, upon meeting of eyes that held her own in
glad subjection. The thrill of captured maidenhood was still upon her,
and O, faithlessness most grievous to the noble captor! she had half
pledged herself to take a husband.

“I cannot!” she cried aloud, stung keenly by the horror and the
gracelessness of such submission.

And then, to accentuate her anguish, the figure of Oïdas for the first
time rose sharp and distinct upon her vision, to fix her in the travail
of repugnance. Until now he had passed before her, a scarce-recognised
nonentity, wafted past her upon sugary strains of Verdi and Bellini,
through the odours of many flowers. Now he stood out in cruel relief
against the background of a holy memory. She saw his high shoulders,
with a slight outward droop curving suddenly inward, and making a
grotesque narrowness of chest, like a bird of prey curved in upon its
wings, and she caught herself smiling at the picture. She detected the
material contentions of the oily simper and too affable expression in
the small black eyes, noted ruthlessly the uncertainty of the spindle
shanks that did lean duty for legs, and the ungraceful flow of the long
loose frock coat.

It was borne in then upon her that she unconquerably disliked Oïdas,
and that pressure would change that dislike to positive and passionate
aversion. Does not youth demand youth for its mate? strength and
beauty their like? Was she to stand tamely by, and let her youth and
strength and beauty be given away to mean and dwindling age such as
his? He had not even the godlike attribute of power upon which she
could let herself be whirled into possession, shutting her eyes in the
make-believe of fatality. Theseus may carry off an unloving Helen,
but at least he is a hero. Helen may repine and revolt, but she feels
that the arms that imprison her are strong and conquering arms. She
may hate, but she will not despise,--and contempt is the one thing
women will not endure. Let the ravisher but possess superb qualities,
and pardon may eventually be his. Pride, sitting apart, is nourished
on their contemplation though the heart be starving, and it is a fine
thing to be able to sustain alien pride in a woman. But a man like
Oïdas, the epitome of male commonplace, held out no future hope of an
honourable compromise between pride and the heart’s exactions. Tied
to him, she would pass through life a mean and pitiable figure, read
in the light of her ignoble choice. It is not given to many women to
wed romance, and the curious want of fastidiousness with which the
sex may be charged, its readiness to take shabby and uninteresting
mates, is one of the best proofs that any man can get a wife. But if
a woman once let her glance dwell upon a live figure of a romance, it
is astonishing how complete will be her discovery of the general ill
looks and unattractiveness of men. Until Inarime had seen Gustav, she
had not remarked whether nature favoured men physically or not. But now
it was the appearance of Oïdas that told most emphatically against him.
Nature had shown her what she could do for a man when she chose to be
in a poetic mood, and she was not disposed to accept the exchange of a
monkey shivering in a frock-coat.

The warm blood running fire through her now petulant veins taught her
how mad was her former belief that she could meet the sacrifice her
father proposed with resigned endurance. The revolt of her body was
as fierce as that of her soul. Marriage was not like a commercial
partnership in which each party lives on certain ground a life apart.
It was the complete enslavement of an existence, the surrendering of
private thought, of the sanctuaries of mind and person. No escape.
Concealment would be subterfuge, the man’s dishonour the wife’s. Habit
would be tyranny, the faintest demonstration of an unshared affection
an oppression. She rose up at this thought with cheeks dyed scarlet,
so acute was her apprehension of its meaning, and then dropped among
her pillows, and hurried to hide from the shame of it under the
protecting sheets.

No, she could not! Less cruel far was the old sacrifice at Aulis.
Iphigenia might well bow to her father’s awful decision while her
soul was unscourged by the scorpion whips of such degradation. The
fire in her brain and the burn of hot dry eyelids kept her awake all
night, pursued by terrible images of an unholy future, and her first
thought, when the dawn touched light upon the window-panes, was to
seek her father and intercept him before he left the Embassy. She knew
he purposed going out early, intending to add to his notes at the
University library, for the German meeting.

“Father,” she cried, in a voice of resolution he was quick to feel
there was no shaking, “I must leave this house at once. You will go and
make my excuses to the baron, while I will knock at the baroness’ door.”

“What has happened, child? You look disturbed and ill,” Selaka
exclaimed, in wonderment.

“I will tell you when we are gone,” she said, growing whiter at the
prospect of giving voice to the night’s sufferings. “Go now, dear
father, and wait for me in the courtyard.”

“I did believe my daughter was not capricious.”

“Papa,” she pleaded, childishly, “love me a little, be kind to me. Do
what I ask.”

Selaka mused half-angrily, as he went in search of the baron, so
thoroughly mystified that he almost apprehended being unfitted for
learned society that morning:

“Ah, why are these explosive engines, known as daughters, born to
poor harassed man? We idly propagate them as candles to attract the
moths around us; to dismay us with their flutter and impertinent
importunities;--magnets to attract violent impulses, and run them
cantering in rivalry.”

Wrapped up in his own vexed thoughts, he had long been perceived by
Reineke at the German school before he recognised the fatal Turk. He
bowed coldly, flushed perceptibly under the eyes. The fellow was a
man to be proud of, he felt, a man in a million, an ideal son-in-law,
and hotly rebuked himself for thinking it. He moved as far away from
Reineke as possible, and fell into eager conversation with a Russian
professor.

The Russian informed him that the French school had curtly declined to
attend, with the added discourtesy of offering no excuse whatsoever.

“Ye gods! Is not the ground of archæology even to be neutral?”
thundered Selaka. “Must politics here be thrust upon us, and have us by
the ears in a fret of jarring and wrangling? It is not a question of
marriage. If civility did not suggest it, policy ought to teach them to
take what Germany, with her science and perseverance has to offer them,
and be thankful for the gift. Let them sulk, and it will do nobody any
harm but themselves.”

“The French minister’s nephew, a very charming young fellow, has sent
an unofficial letter of apology on his own behalf. He was invited
because of a couple of interesting and graceful articles he wrote for
the _Revue des deux Mondes_. It is known that he received orders to
stay away.”

It was an imposing assembly. The nations of the civilised world were
represented by their Embassies and schools, all except sulking France.
The blooming half of humanity was present in a dozen or so of choice
souls, to deck the scene with their flowery robes and bright hues. The
loud murmur of mingled tongues was stopped by Herr Julius Dünckler
stepping forward to open the proceedings formally by a neat little
speech announcing that the paper of the day would be read by his very
youthful but learned colleague, Herr Gustav Reineke. The theme was the
everlasting Theatre, a theme happily not exhausted, and matter still
for research. Herr Reineke had visited every spot of ground that could
be of use to him in the patient analysis of his subject, and his views
were so forcibly put forward, his erudition was so minute and vast at
the same time, that it seemed to him, the director of the German School
of Archæology, that it would be a pleasure and a gain for other workers
like himself in that wide field, to assemble and amicably discuss Herr
Reineke’s paper. The paper, he stated, was translated into English and
French for those present who could not understand German.

Upon invitation, Gustav took his place upon the platform and the
ladies at least were unanimous in their admiration of his handsome and
distinguished presence.

“He looks a scholar and a gentleman to boot,” murmured Mrs.
Mowbray-Thomas.

His voice was grave and musically measured, with an Oriental soft
sonorousness which captivated his hearers. His face was impassive in
its noble earnestness, its strength toned by delicate beauty, lit with
the fine glow of intellect. When he came to the end of his reading, he
bowed in acknowledgment of the applause that greeted it, and, stepping
backward, his eyes sought Selaka through the crowd. He was quick to
detect the flame of affectionate pride that involuntarily leaped into
the old man’s answering look, and a chill from excessive hope ran
through his members in a visible shudder.

He beat his way through congratulating strangers till he stood beside
Selaka’s chair.

“Your hand?” he said, under his breath, extending his own tentatively,
and, seeing it grasped, added, with an ingratiating smile: “It is not
withheld.”

“And wherefore? I am proud of you, proud for you, honoured by the
distinction,” Selaka answered, huskily, while he followed the crowd
towards the door.

“Ah, sir, it is a barren pride for you and me,” said Gustav, keeping
close to his side.

Gustav understood that he was dismissed, but with pardonable
pertinacity resolved to force Selaka to speak to him of Inarime, and
walked beside him.

“She is well?” he almost entreated.

“Very well,” Selaka admitted slowly, not trusting himself to recognise
the hungry question in the other’s eyes.

“Her beauty has made some stir here,” he added in a naïve exposure of
paternal vanity. “You have heard?”

“No, I arrived yesterday. The town’s gossip has not reached me.”

A thrill of insufferable horror shot through him at the hideous picture
of Inarime’s beauty the theme of men’s discourse and the object of
their ugly scrutiny. The Turk was thus far strong within him, that if
possible he would have had her shielded from alien homage, guarded the
bloom and perfume of her beauty for his own exclusive possession.

After a pause, filled in with conjecture and flashes of memory, he
turned again to Selaka.

“Am I still an outcast, sir?”

“Outcast! You know that I esteem you--truly, cordially.”

“For yourself. But for her--in that sense I mean it.”

“I cannot alter the sentence pronounced.”

“Ah!” Gustav interjected, drawing in his breath sharply. “It is so hard
on me. I hope, I believe, it is hard on her, too.”

“She is sensible. She will resign herself to marry the man I have
chosen for her.”

“Young Ehrenstein!” Gustav almost shouted, with a start.

“Can you ask? He is a fool and a villain. A fellow who does not know
his own mind, is betrothed to one woman, loves another, and levants
with a third.”

“Such a choice would indeed be tragic for her,” Gustav said,
sardonically. “Has she consented?”

“Partly.”

“It is incredible to me, sir. You shock me. You unnerve me. I desire
to remain cool, but the picture you force upon me is unbearable, vile,
discordant. Inarime wedded--and not to me! Impossible! I will not
accept it.”

“Hush! You have no choice. I do not offer an alternative,” interposed
Selaka, judicially.

“But, sir, you have a tender love for her. Think of the cruelty, the
shame and agony for her! She is all delicacy and sensitiveness. To
have given herself to me, and now to be asked to accept another! It is
the most abominable desecration of maidenhood! She cannot, she will
not! Be reasonable. Think of her, sir.”

“Of whom else do you suppose I think, Herr ----” but Selaka could not
bring himself to pronounce the false name, and his tongue shrank with
violent repugnance from the other.

“Drop the name,” Gustav implored, seeing his hesitation.

“I do not doubt your tender regard for her, but I do most emphatically
deny that it is possible for you to see the position with the eyes
of youth. Oh, I understand. You deem me jealous. If that were all.
Nay, then it would be worse, for I should doubt her. And I do not. I
could answer for her with my life. You are driving her to an ignoble
compliance. You wish her to be safe from me.”

“You have guessed rightly. I shall not feel secure until she has passed
into other hands--hands that will bind her and you with stronger
fetters than mine.”

“Oh, how wrong you are! How you misjudge me! Have I tried to write to
her, to see her? Yesterday we met,--we did not even touch hands, we
said no word.”

It was Selaka’s turn to start.

“She did not tell me,” he muttered. “To-day she met me with a troubled
aspect, and prayed to be taken away.”

“Poor child! Why will you make it harder for her? Have you the heart
to grieve her so? Why, oh, why put this heavy burden on the young
shoulders you should cherish? I will not harass you. I will not thwart
your plans.”

“You are talking complete nonsense,” Selaka responded, testily. “A
father must marry his daughter, if only to feel she will be protected
after his death.”

“Protected! Inarime unprotected! You madden me. But for myself I do not
complain;--nay, I do most bitterly. Kyrie Selaka, is this your last
word?”

“It is.”

“Will nothing--nothing I can say shake you?”

“Nothing.”

“You are a second Agamemnon,” Gustav cried, and turned away with weary,
angry eyes and white lips.

Pericles opened his mouth to call him back, shut it, drove down the
unsaid words with a heavy sigh, and walked slowly towards his brother’s
house.

Constantine greeted him in the hall with an emphatic look, pointed to
the inner room and shrugged his shoulders.

“She is in there, pacing for all the world like a ravenous tiger. Women
are cats. They spring and tread delicately, with glittering, rageful
eyes, and make you listen, in spite of yourself, for the ominous hiss
and spit, or the soft caressing purr. I would not marry that young
woman for her weight in gold. That reminds me. Oïdas is bothering me
about the engagement. He complains that it is indefinite, that Inarime
has stayed too long at that confounded Embassy, and that you keep him
on tenter-hooks. It is all over Athens about young Ehrenstein. The
senseless whelp! Oïdas is frantic, insists he has been injuriously
trifled with; in short, nothing but an immediate marriage will satisfy
him. He is the snarling dog that shows his teeth upon provocation, and
is perhaps more dangerous, if not more discomposing, than the spitting
cat.”

“It is all right, Constantine. Oïdas is correct in his statement that
he has been somewhat unfairly dealt with, in so far as his answer has
been unduly delayed. This accident of Ehrenstein’s--the Fates confound
him and the Furies overtake him!--teaches me that the conclusion of the
bargain must be speedily arrived at. I cannot have my daughter’s name
dubiously upon the lips of chattering fools. Oïdas will be apprised
this afternoon of my decision.”

He swung into the other room, and a face of piercing eagerness and
demand met his!

“Inarime, you must be ready to marry Kyrios Oïdas at once,” he began,
without any thoughtful preliminaries.

“It is of that I wished to speak to you, father,” she said, in a dreary
quiescence that filled him with hope.

“Come, this promises well. My dear girl is reasonable.”

“He sent me those,” she said, pointing to a small stack of roses,
jonquils and heliotrope, that lay a neglected litter, upon the table,
and appealed to her senses in revolt with a nauseating sweetness.
“And this letter. He is giving a fancy ball, and wishes me to attend
publicly as his bride.”

“The wish does him honour, and is but natural and manly. You must get
over this fancied repugnance, my girl. You will have to marry him. It
is my resolution.”

He spoke with a harshness quite foreign to him, but its adoption
nerved him to show her a front of adamant.

“Father, I will not,” she cried--screamed nearly.

“Will not?” he asked, his brows shooting into a significant arch, and
his eyes, for the first time in the interview, holding hers in question.

“Cannot,” she breathed, in a lower tone, with an air of weakness that
touched him horribly.

“You see your position. It is for you to obey.”

She caught her breath in a sound held between a sob and a hiss,
rebellion gathering ominously about the dark brows.

“You are within your rights, I know. But, oh! father, how can you stand
out for paternal authority in the face of my most utter misery?”

“But, Inarime, this is what I cannot understand,” he protested,
returning to their old footing of equality. “Why should the thought of
this marriage--a wholly respectable alliance--irritate you and make you
miserable?”

“It is not _he_!” she whispered, breathlessly.

“Fudge!”

“Father, will you at least try to face the situation with a woman’s
mind and instinct. Believe me, it is no contemptible mind or instinct
that makes us shrink from an abhorrent marriage. We may not have
heads clear as yours, but our instincts are as finely responsive to
the promptings of nature as a watch is delicately accurate in its
measurements of time. Your brains may err and falsely interpret. Our
hearts cannot, unless art interferes. I speak now of uneducated woman
pitted against educated man. In these things he will have much to
learn from her. We are limited in our nature, father, and that which
you ask of me is impossible.”

“I will not hear it. Nothing is impossible when it simply depends on
the good-will and common-sense of the person. It is my punishment
for having brought you up as a boy. All my love and thought and care
were for you, and this is my reward. You seek to disturb and thwart
me on the very first occasion that brings our wills into collision.
A growing child is like a peach, soft and bloomy to the touch, sweet
to the taste, until you come to the heart, where you find bitterness
and hardness. What can it matter whom you marry, when you cannot marry
_him_?”

“Oh, it is easy enough for you to speak as a spectator. You will not
be marrying the man, and it makes all the difference. The servitude,
the loathing, the degradation will be mine to bear, and only a girl can
feel that.”

“A girl! a woman! Will you not taunt me with your boast of nicer
feeling. This Oïdas, on your own admission, was not specially
distasteful to you.”

“That was when you had not proposed him for a husband.”

“Ouf! One notes the unreasonable sex in that retort. What has my
simple proposal to do with the man. If he were a detestable fellow you
would have hated him from the beginning. Nothing but the unconquerable
passion for worrying and grieving and turning everybody topsy-turvy,
that is born in every woman, would make my desire to marry you to him
paint him to you in blacker colours.”

“It would be the same with any man you might think fit to propose.
If it is the fault of my sex, I cannot in reason be held responsible
for it. It is not my fault that I am not born an exception. And I will
admit, father, in this case I would infinitely prefer to follow the
general rule,” she added, bitterly.

“There, there, my girl, don’t fret me with unkind speech. I have
yielded to temper, I know, and am sorry for it. You have ever been a
solace and a joy to me, and if I have set my heart on this matter, it
is entirely for your good. You must marry some one.”

She allowed him passively to fondle her hand, but her face was still
troubled and cold. Why was it so difficult for him, if he loved her, to
understand and appreciate the nature of her repugnance? Are a girl’s
objections never to count when others have her welfare in view?

“One would think I were disgraced, and marriage necessary at once as a
shield for my reputation,” she retorted, crimsoning hotly, held by a
sense of audacity and shame, as the full meaning of her words rushed
upon her.

“Those are words it requires all my tenderness to forgive, Inarime,”
said Pericles, gravely. “You wonder at my anxiety to marry you. Is it
not simply a father’s duty? It is, moreover, a duty women, good women,
owe to the State.”

“The State!” Inarime exclaimed, with a look of surprised indignation.
“What do good women, as you say, owe the State more than others?”

Selaka stared at her incredulously. Could this be his child? This young
woman, lashed by angry passions, and stinging him in turn by sharp,
impertinent speech!

“They owe it the duty to marry and bring up their children befittingly
and intelligently.”

“You accept too readily that every good woman is capable of this. It
requires, I imagine, special gifts, a special capacity, to bring up
children befittingly and intelligently. It is wiser to count on the
stupidity and capacity of the average.”

“Granted. O, I grant you that with full conviction. Still, we cannot
let the race die out because, unfortunately, parents are for the most
part idiots and criminals. The State is wiser to assume they are the
reverse.”

“Then means should be taken by the State to see that the young are
fitted for their future responsibilities. I have met some very charming
young ladies here at Athens--charming, until you have had time to
discover that they are for the most part insipid, uneducated and silly.
I have nothing to say against them. They were prettily apparelled and
amused me. They chatter engagingly--about nothing. They tell me they
have been for years studying the piano, with no result, and that they
have learned at least four foreign tongues for purposes of social
intercourse--not study. I am curious to know how it could enter the
brains of any one to suspect these pretty toys of a capacity for
bringing up their children intelligently. And yet they will marry, and
will doubtless be considered to have accomplished their duty to the
uncritical State.”

“Well, well, that is not our concern, happily. You, at least, are not
similarly situated. The hours spent by you on study have been spent
to some purpose. The only objection I see to Kyrios Oïdas is, that he
is somewhat old. I would very willingly have changed him for young
Herr Rudolph because of his youth and social position. He loves you,
Inarime, he avowed it frantically to me. But just as I had made up my
mind to effect the alteration of bridegrooms, Θις μαυ he explodes in a
flame of ugly scandal, leaving the full theatrical smell of fire and
brimstone behind him. Faust carried off by a female Mephistopheles!
Ouf! This world!”

Inarime walked across the room, pressed her forehead against the
window, and stood gazing into the street in disconsolate perplexity.
Selaka joined her, and placed his hand affectionately on her shoulders.

“We have been equally in the wrong towards one another, my dear one,”
he said. “We have forgotten the seemly restraints of speech, and in
our smarting anger and disappointment, have drawn largely upon the
copper of language, as if our minds had never fed upon its gold. I am
ashamed and grieved. Antigone would not have spoken to Œdipus as you,
my child, have to-day spoken to me; and Œdipus would not so completely
have forfeited the respect that was due to him. To get back into the
old groove, we will separate and meditate a while apart. In the light
of reflection, you will see that what I ask is for your sole good. If
this story of young Ehrenstein gets abroad, you will be unpleasantly
mixed up with it, and marriage will be your best, and, in fact, your
only shield from evil surmise. You do not doubt my great love, child?”

Still hurt and dismayed, Inarime withheld the be-sought-for look of
reconciliation. Her shoulders moved with an uncontrollable sob; this
marriage revolted her, and held her silent.

“My daughter! my dearest! Look at me, your father, Inarime.”

She turned her head slowly, stretched out her arms, and was enfolded
in his. Their embrace was broken by a loud and frantic entrance.
Constantine rushed in, holding a newspaper in his hand, followed close
by Oïdas, whose face wore an expression of vindictive spite.

“Pericles,” roared poor Constantine, shaken out of his wits, “look at
this! The wretches! the liars! Read it.”

He thrust the paper into his brother’s hands, and began violently to
wipe the perspiration from his forehead. Pericles had just time for a
hurried glance at the garbled and extremely malicious version of the
Ehrenstein romance in the “Aristophanes,” in which Inarime’s name was
printed in full, with a minute description of her person, when Oïdas
broke out:

“I am mentioned, too, as betrothed to your daughter. I do not know
who has authorised this impertinence. How can you expect a man in my
position to marry a girl thus advertised!”

“Is that so? You are not perhaps aware,” shrieked Constantine, “that my
niece has emphatically refused to marry you. She hates you.”

Oïdas smiled sarcastically. That was chaff unlikely to catch him.
Pericles shook himself with a supreme effort out of his state of sickly
stupefaction.

“Kyrie Oïdas, it is as my brother says,” he managed to utter, in a
vague, chill tone. “My daughter has to-day communicated to me her
unconquerable repugnance to the alliance you did us the honour to
propose. You will now do us the still greater honour of relieving us
of your presence.”

Oïdas strutted out of the room with lips drawn into an incredulous
grin, and when the door slammed behind him, Pericles stretched out his
hands helplessly. His face was white and his lips blue. Inarime rushed
to him.

“My father!” she murmured, softly. “Uncle, help me.”

Pericles had fallen back in a dead faint.

Oïdas went about the town, distracted, and resolved to spread his evil
tale. He did not want for willing ears and believers. Many discredited
his story, and reverted to his former unconcealed anxiety to get the
girl, and her evident holding back. In the next day’s papers a formal
announcement appeared stating the Mayor of Athens wished it to be known
that he entertained no intention of marrying the desposyné Inarime
Selaka, and had officially rescinded his proposals.

Vague references further appeared to a Turkish lover, a mysterious
Bey, roving incognito over Greece--learned, fascinating and romantic.
This paragraph and the short letter of Oïdas fell under the amazed
eyes of Gustav Reineke, while he sat at breakfast in his hotel. His
face flamed furious. Giddy emotions momentarily held him prostrate and
insane. Then he rose, clenched his teeth, furnished himself with a
heavy riding-whip, and sallied forth towards the newspaper office. He
met the editor in the hall, unprotected and unsuspecting. With a growl
of Homeric satisfaction, he pounced on that unhappy man, and, passion
lending him strength, suitably reduced him to a pulp. Inspirited by
this diversion, he sought the mayor, was courteously admitted, not
being known to be on an avenging mission; he then proceeded, without
preliminary, to do the work of an infuriated hero upon the rickety body
of that civic luminary. Oïdas’ howls were fearful to hear, but the
door was locked, and only opened to emit in a flash the lithe frame of
Gustav,--his face blanched, his eyes blazing, and his lips triumphant.




CHAPTER XXVI.

HOW ATHENS TOOK THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE PERFIDIOUS RUDOLPH.


Rudolph’s disappearance with Photini created rather more than a nine
days’ wonder at Athens. This is one of the privileges of living in a
small and talkative town where private affairs spread like fire, and
scandal is an excitement only second to that of the election of the
mayor. But it must be confessed that this was a big scandal, and worth
all the ejaculations, comments, and emphatic censure it provoked. The
baron shrugged his shoulders and smiled: it may be allowed he was not
prepared for this sweeping descent on the part of the innocent Rudolph.
But, as he remarked to his wife:

“It’s always your well brought up and virtuous youths who take the
rapidest strides to the deuce! I told Ottilie, years ago, that she was
bringing up that boy to be a very dainty morsel for any adventuress
that might happen to catch him.”

“Well, my dear, we must admit,” said the baroness, “that the
Natzelhuber did not put herself to any considerable trouble to catch
Rudolph. I’ve not the slightest doubt that the boy was only longing to
be caught, and not wishing to escape it.”

“That is ever the way,” remarked her amiable husband, “with our
inconsistent sex. Our normal condition is longing or grumbling. Either
we are crying out against the adventuresses who wish to catch us, or
we are railing against those who won’t; and when we are caught, we are
still crying out that we are caught. The child, you perceive, is father
to the man. Watch an infant with his pets: he fondles and maltreats
the confiding kitten that rubs itself against him, and deserts it to
run after the butterfly. The butterfly won’t be caught and he howls
dismally, if he doesn’t go into a fit, and proceeds to strangle the
tabby. Thus it has been with your engaging nephew. Mademoiselle
Andromache represents the confiding kitten, deserted for Selaka’s
daughter, the unattainable butterfly, and Photini stands for the
domestic tabby. Only the tabby in question possesses very formidable
claws, which she is too likely to use upon the slightest or even upon
no provocation from the faithless Rudolph. He will then return to us a
sadder and a wiser man. Perhaps when that time comes, it will not be so
very difficult for us, with the aid of Mademoiselle Veritassi, should
that delightful young lady be still free, to anchor him in the placid
waters of matrimony.”

“As for Mademoiselle Veritassi,” said the baroness, “it is always the
girls who come off the worst in these matters. They stand there ready
victims for the worn and jaded rakes who have sown their wild oats.
That wild-oat period is an abomination, Baron, and the theory has done
more to injure young men than anything else.”

“Madame, I am not responsible for the errors of civilisation. The
period which you so aptly describe as the wild-oat period, is
doubtless a sad one to contemplate for those like you and me, who
have passed to the other side, where it is to be hoped there are no
wild oats to be sown. But I am not so sure of that. However, I have
not the slightest doubt, should Rudolph settle down with Mademoiselle
Veritassi, that he will make her as good a husband as any other.
Certainly she will find him very pliant and easy to manage. He is
wealthy, too, and I suppose a young woman cannot ask anything better
than a husband she can easily manage, and a purse she can draw heavily
upon,” said the baron, and continued to smoke his morning cigar without
any unwonted discomposure.

The baroness went on her round of visits in a saddened spirit, thinking
of that young life wrecked on its threshold, and feeling that her
sister Ottilie, watching from above, might perhaps consider that she
in some manner or another, was responsible for the boy’s fall. She was
a good woman in her way, though a worldly one. Whatever might be her
opinion of the morals of the young men with whom she associated, she
would gladly have shielded poor Rudolph from any such acquaintance with
life as theirs. Having no child of her own, she loved the boy with a
tender and maternal love.

“It is very dreadful,” she said at dinner to her husband.

“My dear, let us be thankful that it is not worse,--it might have
been,” said the cheerful philosopher.

“Worse!” interrogated the baroness.

“He might have married her.”

This appalling suggestion silenced the baroness.

Some days later, a letter came from Rudolph from Cape Juan. Already
there was a breath of cynicism in it, startling to those who had known
him in his not far distant period of girlish and fastidious shrinking.
The baron read it attentively, and then said:

“It seems to me, my dear, your Arcadian nephew is going to the devil as
fast as brandy and Photini will help him.”

And that was all he said, adding that probably in a year, at the most,
Rudolph would reappear in their midst, hardened, cynical, and worldly
wise.

The outrage inflicted on Athens in the respected person of her chief
citizen still lifted the voice of uproarious censure, and the Turkish
Embassy had to interfere on behalf of Daoud Bey, who made good his
escape.

In the meantime, how has it been faring with the victim, Andromache? In
the first flush of separation, Rudolph was as regular a correspondent
as the postal arrangements of the Peloponnesus allowed. His letters
breathed artless affection and most gratifying regrets. They described
everything he saw at considerable length, and Andromache read them
as young ladies will read their first love letters, answered them
as candidly, making proper allowance for maidenly reticence; and
then devoted herself, with much ardour, to discussing Rudolph with
her mother and Julia. All the while the trousseau was progressing
rapidly. What dresses to be tried on! what quantities of linen to be
embroidered what choice of lace! There was confusion in the little
house overlooking the French school, and Themistocles found it more
necessary than ever to seek the quiet and seclusion of his own chamber,
and there to meditate upon the young lady in the next street and play
endless and torturing variations of Schubert’s Serenade. And O what
a glorious time it was for Miltiades! how he boasted of his sister’s
brilliant future at the mess-table, and walked the town, or rode on his
coal-black charger, with his friend Hadji Adam, the light of excitement
in his eye strong enough to dazzle the rash beholder! Alas! that these
simple joys should be dashed to the ground in disappointment and
humiliation! Letters came more rarely upon the second separation, and
their tone was more curt and less confiding. There was even a strain
of self-reproach in them which Andromache was too unsuspecting to
construe. But these signs of storm passed unnoticed by Miltiades. The
letter fever, we know, soon declines with young men absent from their
lady-loves, and as the months passed the fever gradually abated, and
Rudolph, the faithless, lapsed into silence.

Still the trousseau progressed, and still the marriage preparations
went forward. One day Miltiades in his barracks was informed that
Rudolph had returned to Athens;--he dropped his knife and fork in
astonishment. How came it that he was not aware of this? and how came
it that Rudolph had not yet made his appearance in the little salon,
where the Turkish bomb that had exploded at the feet of Miltiades was
proudly displayed? Miltiades sat at home all the day, and waited for
Ehrenstein. He was wise enough not to mention this fact to Andromache
or to his mother. Perhaps there would be a very simple explanation
forthcoming, and why inflict needless pain upon the women? Days went
by, however, and still no Ehrenstein. By the soul of Hercules, how can
a fellow be expected to stand this kind of treatment? The slaughterer
of five thousand Turks sit calmly by, while his sister is being jilted
in the most outrageous manner! Certainly not.

Miltiades strode the streets of Athens with a more warlike aspect than
ever. The very frown of his brows was a challenge, and the glance of
his eyes was a dagger: the crimson plumes of his service cap nodded
valorously, his sword and spurs clanked. He twirled his moustache
until all the little boys and foot passengers made way for him
apprehensively. Still no Ehrenstein appeared. Then came the climax. It
was an awful moment when the news exploded,--more fatal far than the
Turkish bomb on the table,--that Rudolph had disappeared with Photini
Natzelhuber. We will draw the veil of discretion upon the picture of
a modern Theseus lashed into impotent fury, and striding through the
prostrate forms of his womenfolk in hysterics.

With a Jove-like front Miltiades faced the Austrian Embassy, and held
stern council with the Baron von Hohenfels. Of course there was nothing
to be done. It was clearly impossible to offer money to a warrior and
a hero. Such a thing as breaches of promise are here unknown, and it
was equally impossible to collar Rudolph and bring him back to his
deserted bride. The baron was conciliatory and courteous, as was his
wont; expressed the flattering opinion that Mademoiselle Andromache
was far too good for a reprobate like his nephew; hoped Miltiades
would allow the baroness the honour of calling upon his mother,
Kyria Karapolos, and her family; and placed himself, his house, and
everything belonging to him at the disposal of the affronted captain.
The interview terminated amicably--how could it be otherwise with the
most diplomatic of ambassadors?--Miltiades returned to the bosom of his
family, and held a parliament to debate upon proceedings.

Andromache bore her sorrow better than might have been imagined. She
necessarily did a little in the way of hysterics, but soon settled down
in dreary acquiescence, and spent her days embroidering and practising
the piano. The practice of scales may be recommended to jilted young
ladies. It soothes the nerves, dulls the imagination, and produces a
useful kind of indifference. Young men in similar circumstances prefer,
I believe, wine, or cards, or politics,--or worse.

This was the hour in which Maria shone. Very faithfully and lovingly
did she tend her young forsaken mistress, hovered over her yearningly,
invented delicacies by means of rice, jam, macaroni and tapioca, to
tempt the appetite of the most hardened sufferer, sat by her for
hours, silently stroking her hair and fondling her hands, and unveiled
exquisite depths of tenderness and consideration. Greek servants and
Irish servants are the kindest, most affectionate and most absolutely
disinterested in the world.

But there was a curious hardness about Andromache’s young mouth: a
permanent glitter in her dark blue eyes, that bespoke a cherished
design. Of that design she spoke to nobody, but went through the day
pretty much as usual, and was grateful to those who remained silent
upon her shame. The Baroness von Hohenfels called, was most pathetic,
effusive, and strewed her path with good-will. She called again, this
time with Agiropoulos, who stared at Andromache through his eyeglass,
wore an expensive orchid in his coat, and conducted himself with his
usual fascinating audacity.

“Faith!” he said to the baroness. “I should not object to console the
little Karapolos myself.”

“That is an idea,” said the Baroness. “I’ll marry you, and then I shall
have Rudolph’s perfidy off my mind.”

“Well, now that Photini has deserted me for your charming nephew, it
will be teaching Rudolph a nice lesson in military tactics,--to besiege
his deserted town, and carry it by storm,--eh, madame?”

The Baroness was quite serious in her design. A little Athenian might
be an impossible match for a young Austrian aristocrat, with the blood
of the Crusaders, the Hapsburgs, and heaven knows of what other deeply
azure sources, running through his veins;--but a common Greek merchant
from Trieste, now, an amiable enough person in florid attire, but not
of her world, though gracefully patronised by her! It would be a very
proper match, and one which she was resolved to further. The girl was
pretty--extremely pretty and young. She wanted polish, and a few months
of Agiropoulos’ irresistible society would be sure to accomplish much
in that way.

“Decidedly, M. Agiropoulos, I am determined to marry you. You must
range yourself. You are now, I suppose, just thirty?”

“Oh, madame, grace I beseech you! Twenty-six. But you see the
disastrous results of follies and the harassing cares your cruel sex
imposes on sensitive young men,” said Agiropoulos, with his fatuous
smile.

“Then it is of greater necessity that you should settle down at once,
and devote yourself to the whims of a wife.”

“I am only eager for the day. I have been well disposed towards
Mademoiselle Veritassi, but she, capricious angel, will not have me.”

The baroness felt inclined to box the fellow’s ear, but only smiled.

A few days later this airy individual left a basket of flowers for the
desposyné Andromache Karapolos.




BOOK IV.




CHAPTER XXVII.

INARIME’S VIGIL.


The journey back to Tenos was a mournful one. Selaka, in a mixture of
dread and compunction, shunned his daughter’s glance. There might be
a question of the amount of blame due to him for the trouble in which
they were mutually involved, but the physical weakness consequent upon
his sharp attack left him a prey to exaggerated feelings. That his
daughter, his treasure, whom he had believed few men worthy to possess,
should have been publicly insulted by a wretch like Oïdas to avenge
an ignoble vanity which conceived itself affronted--that so horrible
a stroke should have been dealt him by fate, and the heavens remained
unmoved and the blood of life still flow in his veins, vision not have
been struck from his appalled eyes! Pride lay dead at a stroke, and the
unhappy man felt that he could never again lift a front of dignity to
the light of day.

Of her own wound Inarime thought nothing. To have got rid of the
offensive Oïdas was a gain, even if it cost her an insult. Her
father’s illness was her only care. Dr. Galenides ordered rest and
mountain air. Books, he opined, and cheerful shepherd surroundings
would more than do the work of physic. The simple sights of nature and
her restoring silence would relieve the shocked system, and the late
catastrophe should be ignored.

Constantine travelled with them, moody and petulant by force of
unexhausted vengeance. He paced the deck, muttering and smoking,
smoking and muttering, forgetful of the clamours of the unassuaged
appetite, and consigned the courteous steward to the devil when
importuned to go down to dinner. Dinner indeed! while that fellow
lived who had stolen his friend Stavros from him, beaten him in his
election, and outraged his family. His days were passed in an open-eyed
bloody-minded dream, and he gloated over the picture of the thrashed
mayor, with his features reduced to a purple jelly, and his sneaking
frame doubled up with pain. He could have kissed Reineke’s hand in
gratitude. Horse-whipping was not in his line, but he understood, when
administered by proxy, what a very excellent thing it was. To himself
he plotted how when peace should have descended on the insulted and
angry household, he would manœuvre to reward Reineke.

“He’ll marry her, he will, or my name’s not Constantine Selaka,” he
reiterated to himself, and took the wide expanse of sky and sea to
witness that it was a solemn oath.

At Syra they were late for the bi-weekly boat, but Pericles would hear
of no delay, so they chartered a caique and shot across the placid
blue, as the trail of sunset glory faded out of the deepening sky and
Tenos showed below a solitary patch of green cloud. As they neared the
little pier, the swift, short twilight had touched the valleys and
lent mystery to the bare sweeps of hillside. A palm stood out upon
the sky and appealed to Inarime’s sad eyes in the language of intense
familiarity. She remembered to have noticed that one tree on her first
childish voyage to Syra and, on coming back, to have claimed it with
eager, friendly gaze. It seemed now that eagerness might henceforth
hold no part in her experiences, and she felt like one who was staring
back with sorrowful visage upon serene unnumbered years. The tears
came rapidly as she noted each feature of the dear familiar picture,
the background of her young life, and with them the magic thought that
Gustav, too, had gazed lingeringly, tenderly upon it, thrilled her
ineffably. She tried to imagine his impressions, and examined it keenly
to discover how it might strike upon strange vision.

This is a craving of girls--to know how their lovers look upon things
both have seen; to get inside their sight and count their very
heart-beats. Women grow less exacting and imaginative, I believe, and
have more practical demands upon love.

Aristides met them with mules and voluble utterances.

“Where is Paleocapa?” Pericles demanded, remembering to cast a
searching glance about for the ruffian steward.

“He went up to meet some fellows in Virgin Street. I’ve no doubt they
are in the Oraia Hellas,” answered Aristides.

“Besotting himself with his abominable raki--the brute!--Annunziata is
well?” Selaka queried, sharply.

“Did you ever know her ill? Kyria Helena is up at Xinara. Nothing
has happened since you left except the occasional backslidings of
Paleocapa, who at times cannot be kept from his raki and was no less
than thrice dead drunk. Oh, yes, Demetrius’ wife is dead, and Michael
the carpenter is going to be married to make up for the deficiency,”
Aristides chirped on, as heedless as a blackbird.

“Will you give us peace, you chattering fool,” thundered Pericles with
an outburst of wholesome rage.

The sharp perfumes of the thyme and pines were wafted on the cool
breezes of an April evening, as the little _cortège_ of mules, guided
by Aristides, wound slowly up the marble-stepped and rocky way, and
Inarime drew in the air with quivering nostrils and parted lips. It was
the air of home she breathed, fresh, untainted, smelling of upper hills
and far off-seas, not that of a dusty city cheapened by the presence
of all-pervading man. Thankfully she acknowledged the quiet of the
land, the view unbroken by moving object. Here, at least, might one
live unshamed, if even the heart were cut in twain. Upon the projecting
point of the Castro, hung one first pale star, steadfast and patient
like the light of a soul. Thus patiently and steadfastly should the
star of love shine for her, its flame softly and uncomplainingly
cherished by her. She would not again quit the shelter of her own grey
Castro that looked so desolately upon these valleys, like the ghost of
other centuries lured to the scene of its departed splendours. Her
spirit sprang towards it with a throb of solemn joy. Dear sight! she
could have clung to its burnt flanks and wept among its thymy crevices.

Night was flying over the heavens as they rounded the little path under
it that leads into Xinara. The wind blew chill and balmy, and chased
skurrying clouds across the peeping stars, like shadows flailed by the
invisible powers to dim their mild radiance. Inarime shivered a little,
and turned anxiously to her father.

“Pull up your coat-collar, father,” she entreated.

Demetrius and Johannis were smoking at the shop door when the expected
procession passed through the village street. Michael was sitting in
his betrothed one’s kitchen, staring at her silently, and profusely
expectorating, which was his way of courting. All the villagers that
dwelt on high, leant over their rickety wooden balconies, sniffing the
evening air and talking in a subdued tone, and those below lounged
against door-jambs, or over garden walls.

“Καγ ἑὁπἑρα,” waved upon many voices to Pericles and Inarime, and more
royal “Ζἡσω” to the King of Tenos.

“Ζἡσω ὁ βασγἑυς ρἡς Τἡνου,” Demetrius sang out, cheerfully, and every
head uncovered, hats were frantically waved by the men, handkerchiefs
by the women. One foolish fellow high up, ran into the house for his
pistol and luxuriously fired off a couple of shots by way of salute.

“Confound the idiots!” muttered Constantine, shuddering in his terror
of the explosion. He hated the sound or the idea of the weapon, and his
abortive duel with Stavros had not tended to lessen his instinctive
abhorrence.

“No more of that, my good fellows,” he roared, commandingly. “Any
expression of your kind regard flatters me, but my brother has had an
illness, and is very much shaken. The ride from the town has proved
rather more than his strength is capable of, and your noisy enthusiasm
would quite prostrate him. Many thanks and good-night.”

“Ζὁψω!” again shook the silence of night as they rode through the
village.

“The Virgin be praised! We have back our own dear young lady,” Katinka
shrieked, kissing her fingers vigorously.

Inarime waved her hand in gracious recognition, and the proud,
cherishing eyes of her adorers watched her slim figure, and the homely
shape of her charger until the twilight mist swallowed them out of
their sight. Annunziata and Kyria Helene stood at the little postern
gate to welcome them. The tender brightness of their glances and the
warmth of their cheering smiles struck the home-sick girl with the
force of a buffet. She stumbled choking into Annunziata’s arms, and
hung limp about her.

“Annunziata, Annunziata,” she cried like a child.

“My own girl! It is heaven to have you back. ‘When will she come?’ the
villagers ask me every day, and shake their heads mournfully at the
continued eclipse. Dear sir!” she added, as she caught the hands of
Pericles, and held them fondly.

Pericles pressed her brown fingers, then kissed the cheeks of his
sister and pleaded for immediate rest.

“It’s what we all need--supper and bed,” Constantine growled, turning
to abuse Aristides for delay.

Oh, the poignant appeal to the senses of the dusky, sweet-smelling
courtyard, rich with its departing spring blooms! It swept Inarime like
the breath of childhood and filled her with fervent gratitude. To go
away for the first time and come back! A month may hold the meaning of
a cycle and awaken in the young heart all the fancies, the miseries and
joys of the wanderer. Astonishment thrilled her that this place should
greet her with its aspect of awful changelessness, and yet, if a stone,
a flower, a chair were changed, it would have left her dumb with aching
regret.

Annunziata’s arm was round her, and she put up a timid hand to feel the
Turkish kerchief, the plait of false hair outside, and lovingly touched
the wrinkled cheek.

“It is so good to be back with you,” she whispered.

“My treasure! my dearest child! I have been with you since you were a
baby, and the sun did not shine for me while you were away,” the old
woman murmured, and her tearful eyes pierced the baffling glimmer of
early moonlight like glittering stars.

The little white salon was cozy and inviting by lamplight, and beyond
it, in the inner room, the table was laid for supper. Constantine, dead
with fatigue, hunger and shaken bones, pounced on it like a famished
ogre, but a little soup and wine sufficed Inarime and Pericles.

“Brother, you look thin and worn,” Helene exclaimed, eyeing him
doubtfully.

“Has he not been ill?” screamed Constantine, between the noisy gulps of
his soup.

“I am well enough, sister, but very weary,” said Pericles, rising from
the table. “Inarime, I would speak a word with you before I sleep.”

She followed him to his room, and when he fell into a chair, she
crouched on her knees beside him.

“My child, I have been humbled through you,” he began, musingly, while
his fingers gently stroked her hair. “Your instinct against my reason!
And instinct conquers, reason is beaten, and grievously rebuked. I
meant it for the best, my Inarime. But now I yield to your wishes. It
would have been well for me to have taken counsel with them from the
first. But this is ground upon which, perhaps, the old may always learn
from the young without disgrace.”

His speech faltered and died away in supreme weariness. Inarime held
her breath. Could this mean the recall of Gustav? And yet the hope
seemed so wild that she dared not give it a transient shelter lest the
reaction should utterly overwhelm her.

“To-morrow, father dear,” she urged, kissing his hand. “You are so
tired now.”

“I have not much to say, and I hasten to have it over that I may not be
obliged to revive the painful subject. I will not seek again to oppose
your natural desire to remain unwedded, since you cannot hope to wed
where your heart is.”

Tears of disappointment sprang to her eyes. She moved away from him in
silence, and then glancing over her shoulder, saw the droop of illness
in his frame, and his arms hanging languidly beside him. She was
smitten with remorse, and went back to him.

“Thank you, father,” she said, softly.

“Kiss me, my girl, and leave me,” he just breathed.

She stooped over him and kissed him tenderly. All her reverent love
returned on a swell, and it seemed a small thing to give up her lover
to stay with her father always. The untroubled harmony of their
relations dwelt with her again.

She went to her room, and opened the window to look out upon the
peaceful night scene. Her terrace ran round the house, and commanded a
view of the plain rolling to the distant sea and the girdling hills and
wide dim valleys. The moon was high under a white veil of milky way.
The bright metallic stars made a counter-radiance to her silver light,
and every leaf and rugged contour was sharply visible in the mystic
illumination. An oppressive silence lay upon the mountains, heavy
stillness enveloped the valleys; the leaves dropped silver, and the
flow of the torrents and the tiny quivering rills ran chill upon the
nerves. The spirit of water and moonlight pervaded the scene, running
through it with innumerable thin faint echoes. Every nook and crevice
lay revealed, and the shadows were defined with harsh distinctness, the
distances losing themselves in their own dark verges. Through the dusk,
yellow lights from the farm casements were sprinkled here and there,
and villages showed through their gardens and orchards as black masses
upon the barren highlands.

Her heart was empty from excessive feeling as she looked across the
land. Oh, for courage and freedom to wander forth and touch with feet
and hands each well-remembered spot! A bat flitting through the air
brushed her cheek, and she looked up to follow its black passage.
She sat and watched everything, her energies expended in the delight
of recognition. The waves of white cloud stealing across the heavens,
and the moon imperceptibly beginning to dip, warned her that time was
running apace, and a fluttering movement in the trees underneath told
of birds softly stirring in their warm nests. The thought of their
warmth made her aware that her teeth were chattering and her limbs were
rigid with cold.

Still she sat through the night, and watched the day ushered in upon
violet light, that soon glowed like fire. Crimson wings sped over the
sky with quivering promise. At their touch the stars seemed to tremble,
grew pale and were extinguished one by one. The little birds exulted in
their nests and essayed a note or two. Daylight broke upon the earth
from the fires of the East. Warmth travelled down the abysses of air,
and in its first caress the night-dews shone like jewels on the leaves
and flowers. The rapture of the birds grew into a spray of delirious
song; it dashed upwards with the ring of silver mellowing to gold as it
caught melody. The moon gazed pallid regret upon the scene and melted
away in sickly stealth, as the voices of the morning awoke with the
shrill crow of the cocks. Every folded leaf was now unclosed, and upon
the skirts of the flying dawn the sun rose and spread his tyrannous
light over hills and valleys. The world breathed in day, the dewdrops
were beginning to melt, and the song of the birds was insufferably
sweet to the ears.

Her hands were clammy and her frame was stiff when Inarime rose and
entered her room. Never more would she be asked to leave this place.
The hand beggared of the touch of Gustav’s, she was now free to keep
unclaimed by any other man. Even that small boon was something to be
thankful for, and she blessed her father before flinging herself down
to snatch an hour of oblivion and rest for her tired young limbs. In a
few hours the kindly villagers would flock to welcome her in person,
and the dispensing of customary hospitalities would leave no time for
poignant thoughts.




CHAPTER XXVIII.

SHOWING A LADY KNIGHT-ERRANT TO THE RESCUE OF UNHAPPY LOVERS.


Spring waned in the extinguishing heat of summer. The noonday blue of
the heavens was lost in a warm grey mist. All the green was burnt off
the face of the earth, and the eyes turned in pain from the burning
hills and shadowless plain, from the awful glimmer of marble upon the
Acropolis and the hot streets below. Shade, shade, darkened chambers
and cool drinks, and the sweet siesta, curtained off from the sting of
the mosquito, were all that nature called for.

The Baron and Baroness von Hohenfels had left Athens for the repose
of an Austrian country house. They knew that Rudolph and Photini
were wandering about the south of France with an inconvenient train
of live pets, a grand piano, a violin, and discontented hearts. More
than this they did not care to know, and patiently awaited the hour of
reform, when the wild oats period should have exhausted itself, and
the prodigal return to the comfort of more discreet irregularities,
hardened, cynical, and very well disposed to settle down in marriage.

The Karapolos were looking forward with much satisfaction to the next
September move, and this time were in treaty with the owners of a flat
in Solon Street. Miltiades was away in Thessaly with his regiment, and
was not expected back until October. Andromache went about the same as
ever, and no one knew whether the wounds of her heart were permanent
or not. But Agiropoulos was attentive, though far from communicative
in the proper way, and Kyria Karapolos, in her state missives to the
absent hero, thought it not improbable that Andromache might be induced
to accept him.

Little Themistocles was less on parade in Stadion Street because of the
exactions of the weather, but of an evening he cheerfully tortured his
violin, and unbosomed himself to his fellow-clerks in the Corinthian
bank. Things here as elsewhere went on very much as usual. The town
was rapidly thinning, and lodgings and hotels at Kephissia, Phalerum,
Munychia and the Piræus as rapidly filling.

Gustav Reineke had been voyaging in Asia Minor with a party of English
archæologists bound upon an excavating expedition. Upon his return
to Athens, he found his old friend and admirer, Miss Winters, the
delightful little American, with her lovely snow-white hair and a
complexion as fresh as a girl’s. Gustav was charmed, and so was Miss
Winters. They struck at once into fraternity. He accompanied her
everywhere, carried her photographic apparatus, adjusted it, and as
soon as she disappeared under the cloth, applied himself to read aloud
the classics to her. She took full command of him, ordered and piloted
him in an impulse of protecting and authoritative motherhood that
soothed him unspeakably. He obeyed her with pleasure, and in return
imparted to her the story of his love.

“And has the young lady no idea where you are?” she asked, struggling
frantically with her machine on the Acropolis.

“None. I cannot write to her,” said Reineke, dejectedly.

“What nonsense! You love her; she loves you. You have no right to lose
sight of each other. Have you never tried to write?”

“No. I felt the right to do so was not conceded me.”

“Nonsense! it is no question of right or wrong; it is simply natural.
Well, I see I cannot settle this to-day, so I had better go home and
put my other views in order. Did you say the old man, Selaka, lives in
the village of Xinara?”

“Xinara, Tenos,” nodded Gustav.

“I see. Well, carry this home for me, then go and stay quietly in your
hotel,--I may have something to tell you in a few days.”

He carried his burden to her rooms, which faced the columns of Jupiter,
gallantly kissed her tiny hand, and turned with a soft smile in his
eyes as he walked to the Hôtel de la Grande Bretagne.

“I will certainly make a journey to America to see that charming little
lady,” he said to himself, and while he sat in his room waiting for
the short blue twilight, he took out of his breast pocket the only
remembrance of Inarime he possessed--the unfinished verses he had found
some months ago at the Austrian Embassy.

Everything on the Acropolis had been photographed from every possible
point of view, and nearly everything in the museums, and on the day
they had arranged to start for Sunium, Miss Winters met Reineke with a
portentous air.

“Mr. Reineke, I have heard from that old man, and, indeed, he is not
worth much. He is just an old heathen.”

Gustav laughed, touched by the irresistible humour of hearing Miss
Winters, herself more than half a pagan, abuse any one on the ground of
heathenism.

“What are you laughing at, sir?” she asked, frowning.

“Oh, I was not quite prepared to hear you turn upon the heathens, I
thought you were in such thorough sympathy with them.”

“With the ancient heathens, if you please,” corrected Miss Winters.
“That is very different from modern heathenism. The ancients were
respectable, upright and religious men, fearing the gods and respecting
the laws of nature. But your Selaka! He has all the vices of the
Christian, without any of the virtues of the pagan.”

“Selaka! What of him?” cried Gustav, opening his eyes.

“Did I not tell you? I have heard from him.”

“Heard from Selaka? How? When?”

“Through the post--how else? I wrote to him.”

Reineke sat dumfounded and stared at her. He believed the courage
of woman in managing the affairs of stricken man went far; but this
utterly surpassed the limitations he allowed it.

“You wrote to him,” he murmured.

“Certainly, it was high time some sane person undertook the task of
reasoning with him, and convincing him of his folly.”

“And might I ask how you applied yourself to this task? upon what
grounds you based your arguments?”

“Well, I told him you are no more a Turk than I am.”

Gustav exploded hilariously.

“Why, you know you are not. You are just as Greek as you can very well
be,--far more so than he is, you bet.”

“Well?”

“He did not see it;--of course not, the old lunatic.”

“May I be permitted to look at the letter, Miss Winters?”

“There it is. It is a very instructive letter in its way, written in
far better German than mine.”

Gustav took the letter, and studied it leisurely. It was dignified
and courteous, spoke in high terms of himself as a man of honour and
learning to whom he should, in other circumstances, have been proud to
entrust his daughter’s happiness. But its tone was unmistakable, its
decision unalterable. Gustav sighed heavily as he returned it to Miss
Winters.

“He’s a fanatic--that’s just what he is,” she cried.

“And the worst of it is, Miss Winters, one is forced to admire such
consistent and adamantine fanaticism, though its bigotry be the bar to
one’s own happiness.”

“Why, of course, that’s the worst of it. If there were not such an
element of nobility in it I should not want to shake him so much. It
is always a satisfaction to be able to call the person who opposes or
frustrates your purpose a scoundrel or a brute--but not to be able to
call him anything harder than a pig-headed old pagan, and to have to
smile admiration through one’s rage of disappointment, puts a point
upon one’s anger. Well, never mind, Mr. Reineke. I’ll thwart him yet.
I’ll write to the girl next.”

Gustav gasped and doubtless thought--as the French critic thought of
Moses--“cette femme est capable de tout.”

They went together to Sunium, and photographed everything in the
neighbourhood, ruins, peasants in fustanella and embroidered jackets,
women in embroidered tunics and headgear of coins and muslin, and then
went to Corinth and accomplished similar wonders there.

“I quite feel as if I had a son,” said Miss Winters, patting Gustav’s
hand affectionately.

“What a pretty and youthful mother I have found,” laughed Reineke.

Miss Winters delayed in Corinth to write a chapter of her book on
Greece, and Gustav lounged about with the piratical tendencies of an
archæologist. When they reached Athens, borne down by the weight of
manuscripts, vases and photographs, Miss Winters found a notification
from the Corinth post-office that a letter was waiting for her “au
_bourreau_ d’ Athènes.”

“Good heavens, Mr. Reineke, can I in some inexplicable way have brought
myself under the penalties of the law? Is it forbidden, under pain of
death, to photograph ruins and views of Greece? What connection can I
possibly have with the executioner of Athens?”

Gustav laughed and suggested “bureau,” and went off himself to the
post-office, where, indeed, he found a letter addressed to Miss Winters
in the beautiful calligraphy he so well knew. Then she had written to
Inarime, and he held the answer in his hand! He looked at it lovingly,
reverentially, and just within the arches of the post-office, glancing
hastily around to ascertain that he was not observed, he raised the
envelope to his lips. He gave it to Miss Winters without a word, and
went away. That evening Miss Winters came to him at his hotel, silently
put the letter into his hand, and closed the door of his room as she
went out softly, as one closes the door of a sick chamber.

Gustav sat watching the letter timidly, afraid to learn its contents,
and the desire of it burned his cheek and quickened his pulse like
fever. How would the silence of months be broken? Would her message
realise his high expectations? Would the world be less empty for
him because of it? Would this fierce ache of the heart drop into a
contented memory? He felt her arms about his neck, her lips upon his,
her glance pierced his own through to his inmost soul, held her in his
clasp, and lived again their short impassioned hour. How bright the
rain-drops had looked upon the winter grasses and curled leaves, how
clear the song of the birds in the moist air! The moments fled with the
hurry of rapture, his beating pulses timed to their measureless speed.

Still Inarime’s letter lay unopened in his hand.

He saw her in the courtyard at Xinara remonstrating with the sobbing
woman crouched at her feet; felt his gaze compel hers and drew in
his breath with a catch of pain at the memory of the sweet surprised
surrender of her eyes,--followed slowly, obediently, her vanishing form
with that last long look of hers to feed his hungry soul.

And still the letter was unread.

He sat trifling with his happiness and his misery, scarcely daring
to open it, shaken with the apprehensions of yearning, hardly strong
enough to lash himself to courage by the past--enervated, sick with
expectation, chill with fright. Slowly he took the sheet out of the
envelope, and bent his eyes upon it, not noticing that a thinner sheet
had fallen to the ground.

Thus it ran:


     “MADAME,--

     “I am abashed before the thought of my deep indebtedness to you,
     and the knowledge that it will never be my good fortune to repay
     you. More to me than your kind words is the comfort of knowing
     that, separated from him you write of as I am, by a fatality I
     have neither voice nor influence to avert, your presence makes
     amends to him for my enforced silence. Your letter breathes of
     tender regard for him. Is not that a debt of some magnitude you
     place on me? A debt I am proud to acknowledge. Alas! Madame,
     it is useless to hope to combat my father’s repugnance to the
     marriage you appear to think so natural. I know my father. His
     prejudices are few, and strong indeed must be that which raises
     an impassable barrier to my happiness. I hold it as a religious
     duty to respect it, and smother the feelings of rebellion that
     sometimes rise and stiffen my heart against him. I have no right
     to rebel, for he loves me--oh, he loves me very dearly. I think
     he would almost give his life for mine, and most willingly would
     I lay down mine for his. Since I was a little child he has cared
     for me and cherished me. He has tried to make me the sharer of
     his great learning, that there might be no division between us,
     that I might be rather a disciple following afar than an alien
     to the one object of his existence. You see, it is no common
     bond you ask me to break. It would be something more than the
     flight of a daughter,--it would be the defection of a pupil--and
     he, the tenderest master! I could not bear, by any action of
     mine, to forfeit my worthiness of such exclusive devotion, and
     should I not do so past excuse if I were to cause him one pang of
     disappointment or anger?

     “To follow your counsel, and take my destiny into my own hands
     by one wild leap into the bliss my heart calls for, would be to
     risk his anger without the assurance that ultimately I should be
     forgiven. Do not urge me to it, I beseech you. My father ill and
     alone! The thought would make a mockery of my happiness. It would
     be a pall upon my bridal robes. Forgive me, Madame. I love you
     for your wish to help me, though the effort be ineffectual. If
     I boldly seem to criticise, believe me, it is with no intention
     to wound. You will think me a coward, perhaps, for I know that
     it is different with the women of your race. They act without
     scruple for themselves, and their parents have no other choice
     than to yield to theirs. But I cannot bring myself to regard
     this as right. _He_ cannot surely desire that I should come to
     him thus--with the stain of strife and revolt upon our love. You
     see I am fastidiously jealous of the future. It is so fatally
     easy for the young, upon the impetus of ungovernable passion, to
     let themselves be precipitated into rash errors: so difficult to
     recover forfeited ground.

     “But how fervently I thank you for your sweet sympathy and your
     offer of a home until such time as another would be mine, I have
     not words to say. Your heart must be fresh to be so tenderly open
     to the sorrows of the young. I shall bless the day that brings us
     face to face. If you would visit our island! But we are so rough
     and backward, and the stillness, I fear, would prove oppressive to
     one from a country where, I am assured, movement is the extremity
     of haste. And yet I love the place all the more from my short
     absence from it. It was like heaven to see it again, to feel the
     untrodden ground beneath my feet, to watch the unfretted stars
     from a world below as uneager and as changeless. The seasons are
     not more regular than our habits, and excitement is undreamed of
     by us. The villagers come to me with their simple woes, and I
     comfort them and doctor them, and instil into them such wisdom
     as my young head has mastered. Sometimes my dear father comes to
     my help,--not often, for they are less afraid of me. It is, I
     suppose, because I am nearer to them.

     “This letter shames me, it is so idle and garrulous. What have I
     to say but that I love you, Madame,--I love you, and beg you to
     accept the assurance of my heartfelt gratitude and my affectionate
     friendship.

     “INARIME SELAKA.”


This letter might seem to lack the artlessness and spontaneity of
girlhood. But its very restraint held a precious eloquence for Gustav,
and it was not the less dear to him because he felt the writer was
completely master of her mind. It held no want for him. He read
between the lines, and adored the eyes the more that he understood
their tears were held in check. The lips may have trembled in the
reawakened force of passion, the gaze have grown dim with longing,
the pulses throbbed to ache and ebbed away upon the sickening wave
of despair, but the letter only breathed of weakness conquered, the
pressure of a restraint imposed by life-long habit, and could not be
called artificial. He reverenced her sweet reasonableness and her grave
acceptance of the inevitable. He re-read the letter carefully, and
kissed the name at the end. Why had she avoided the writing of his?
He began to walk about the room, picking out sentences to burn upon
his memory, when his eyes detected a slip of paper upon the ground.
He pounced upon it with a presentiment of what it was. _Herrn Gustav
Reineke_ was written outside, and it was delicately folded. He opened
it, and his breathing could have been heard at the other end of the
room.


     “Dear One--my dearest! My father has at last consented to let me
     remain unmarried--but that is all. We may hope for nothing more.
     Still, our love is respected. I cannot think it is wrong of me to
     send you this message. At least, I hope it is not. You have my
     faith. O, I love you, I love you.”


Gustav sat through the night with his head bent over this message.
Desires and thoughts and wild hopes wavered and shot through him like
arrows, now swift and sharp, now blunt and slow, needlessly lacerating
in their passage. When morning came he shook off his dream, and replied
to Miss Winter’s glance of veiled interrogation by a look supplicating
silence.




CHAPTER XXIX.

HOW A MAID OF ATHENS AVENGED HERSELF.


One day late in October the news somehow or other reached Rudolph, when
at Cannes, that Selaka and his daughter were back in Athens. Without a
word of explanation to Photini, who was engaged upon a public concert,
he started off, and arrived in Athens late at night. The Baron and
Baroness von Hohenfels were startled at their midday breakfast, next
morning, by the entrance of the prodigal.

“Rudolph, good heavens!” cried the baron, and shook him gladly by the
hand, but Rudolph was cold almost to rudeness. He suffered himself
to be embraced by his aunt, and then went and stood against the
mantelpiece. It was impossible not to note and deplore the change in
him: from an engaging and innocent boy he had turned, in less than
a year, into a hard and reckless-looking young-old man. His air was
aristocratic but strangely unattractive, and his fair face was lined as
no face should be lined at twenty-two. The blue eyes that used to be so
soft in their clearness, so like his mother’s, as the Baroness thought,
were now keen and glittering and held a dull fire within them. He stood
thus looking moodily down, and then said curtly:

“You are surprised to see me, I suppose?”

“Well, I will admit,” the baron answered, “something in the nature of
an announcement might have been expected, as a reasonable concession to
the laws of courtesy. But since you are here, you had better sit down
and take some breakfast with us.”

Rudolph laughed, and took a chair at the table. Before eating he
poured himself out a generous tumbler of wine, and drank it almost
at a draught. The baron stared a little, looked across at his wife,
and lifted his brows meaningly. The talk at first was light. Rudolph
touched upon the places he had seen, and made himself exceedingly
witty and merry at the expense of the distinguished personages he
had met in the course of his travels. He asked how matters stood at
Athens; inquired after Agiropoulos and Mademoiselle Veritassi, the
Mowbray-Thomases, and his friend the young Viscount, but never a word
was said about Andromache. Then lying back in his chair, and lighting a
cigar, the baron asked, with a mocking smile.

“And, my amiable nephew, how fares it with the fascinating Natzelhuber?”

Rudolph drew in his brows with a frown, and looking hastily at his
aunt, said:

“We will not discuss her, sir, if you please.”

“Oh,” assented the baron, interjectionally, and busied himself with his
cigar; “may one, without indiscretion, be permitted to inquire into
your plans for the future?”

“I have no plans,” said Rudolph, taking up a cigar.

“At least I see,” laughed the baron, “you have succumbed to the
beneficial influence of tobacco.”

“Yes, I smoke now; I do most things now that other men do.”

“So I perceive,” said the baron, drily, “you even look as if you did
a little more,” he added, noting that Rudolph had helped himself to a
second glass of brandy.

When Rudolph stood up, the baroness stopped him with a demand to know
if they might expect the pleasure of his presence at dinner that night.

The young man nodded and left the room.

“A singularly altered young man,” said the baron, across to his
wife, “it seems to me that the Natzelhuber has imparted some of her
natural courtesy to him, and given his manners the piquant flavour of
originality!”

“Oh, he is frightfully changed,” said the baroness; “and did you remark
his deplorable weakness for wine?”

“Well, yes, it struck me, I confess, that he rather copiously washed
down the small allowance of food he indulged in.”

“Poor boy, we must only try and keep him here now that we have him, and
get up a few lively entertainments for him. That he is wretched it is
easy to see. I think his recklessness comes from despair.”

The baron shrugged his shoulders. “That is always the way with
well-brought-up youths,--the slightest folly plays the very mischief
with their temperaments, and they are ever in extremes, whether on the
path of virtue or on the more fascinating road to the dogs!”

While the easy-going ambassador was thus moralising, Rudolph was
scouring Athens in search of tidings of the Selakas. Having ascertained
at the _Hôtel des Étrangers_ that they had gone out for a drive, he
returned to the Embassy, borrowed one of his uncle’s horses, and was
soon out upon the open road, sweeping the plain of Attica with eager
glances strained in every direction for the carriage in which the
father and daughter might be found.

Upon the skirt of the olive-misted plain he dismounted, and entered the
leafy shade of a little café garden, lost in a glade of scented pines
and oleanders. Here he called for cognac, and sat moodily smoking until
the sun went down.

Let us glance at the house of Karapolos now, situated in Solon Street.
Miltiades is back from Thessaly, more glorious and more ferocious than
ever. He learnt that morning of Rudolph’s reappearance in Athens, and
communicated that fact to his family at dinner. That evening, as he
returned from duty, he missed a dainty silver pistol his friend Hadji
Adam had given him. With a brow of thunder and voice of menace he
sallied forth and had his servant Theodore arrested for the robbery.
While Theodore was being carried off, shrieking and protesting, and
calling upon all the saints and the Virgin and the soul of his dead
mother to witness that he was being falsely accused, Andromache, for
some unaccountable reason was wandering about the steep solitudes of
Lycabettus in company with the faithful Maria. She had been allowed to
go forth in pursuit of veils and gloves in the frequented street of
Hermes. Now, what, one asks, could take a young lady towards sunset up
a lonely and rugged slope of Lycabettus, when her ostensible journey
lay in the region of shops? This was a secret known only to Andromache
and to the faithful Maria.

On the following afternoon, Andromache begged her mother to take her to
hear the band play upon Constitution Square. The square was thronged,
the ladies, as is customary in Athens, walking together, and the men
in similar fraternity, Captain Miltiades was with these, and so were
Agiropoulos and the popular poet.

A close observer might have noticed that Andromache’s pretty dark
blue eyes glistened with a curious light; that the blood had left her
face and lips, and that she walked like one in a state of nervous
excitement. Poor, betrayed, little Andromache! if only she had confided
her frantic purpose to somebody, and had not all these months repressed
her sorrow, and striven to show a brave front to the curious world!
Many horrors are spared the loquacious, and the worst follies are
those committed by silent sufferers. Andromache kept looking fixedly
round in evident watch for some one. If you want to meet any one in
Athens, you are sure to do so between Stadion Street and Constitution
Square. The person Andromache was looking for soon made his appearance,
walking casually along, not caring greatly to examine the people that
were hustling against him. He sat down at a café table, and called for
coffee, and while waiting for it began to roll up a cigarette, and
unconsciously hummed the melody of Waldteufel’s “Souvenir,” which the
band was playing. Andromache made a step forward from her mother’s
side to the table at which Rudolph was seated; and in a second she
whipped out of her breast the little silver pistol, for the loss of
which Theodore was in prison, and fired straight at the shoulder of
her recreant lover. Imagine the commotion, the whirr of speech and
explanation, the jostling to look at the injured maid and the wounded
man. The band stopped playing in the middle of Waldteufel’s charming
waltz, band-master and band attracted to the spot. Strange as it may
appear, all Hellenic sympathies were upon the side of Andromache: not a
single voice of censure was raised against her, but everybody seemed to
think that she had performed a feat of courage. Here her courage ended;
the pistol fell from her hand, and she dropped rigid into her mother’s
arms. She was carried home, and soon passed into the unconsciousness
of brain fever. Rudolph was not seriously injured, but faint enough to
need the help of a carriage to take him back to the Austrian Embassy,
with the prospect of confinement to his room for a few days.

The Baron von Hohenfels in his official position was greatly perturbed
by this scandal, and made immediate application for a change of
post. He was too angry to visit his luckless nephew’s room until the
baroness’ prayers melted him. When Dr. Galenides had seen the patient,
and pronounced him in a favourable condition for recovery, the baron
suffered himself to be led to the bedside.

Rudolph looked very piteous upon his pillow, with the flush of fever
on his white cheeks and a harassed, humble expression in his eyes. The
much aggrieved baron relented, hummed and hawed a little as a kind of
impatient protest, stroked his beard, and finally began, in a softened
voice:

“My dear boy, are you quite satisfied now that you have made Athens too
hot for an Austrian Ambassador?”

“I am very sorry, uncle,” said Rudolph, and he looked it.

“Well, yes, I can quite believe that you are not exactly jubilant.”

“As soon as I am well enough to move, I’ll leave Greece, and wild
horses will never drag me here again.”

“On the whole, I think you have done fairly well upon the classic
shores of Hellas, and it would be as well to confine yourself to the
rest of Europe during the remainder of your mortal career. But it is
a little hard on me that my family should reflect discredit upon my
country. Zounds! Could you not have understood that the Greeks are a
most susceptible and clannish race? There is one thing they will not
forgive, and that is an affront done a compatriot by a stranger. And we
Austrians, you must know, are not more adored here than the English.
In fact, we are hated. If the French Viscount had jilted Mademoiselle
Andromache Karapolos, and had been shot at by her, public indignation
would have taken a considerably modified tone.”

“What can I do, uncle?” asked Rudolph, penitently.

“Get well as soon as possible, and give Athens a wide berth. I cannot
advise you to fling yourself at the feet of the fair Andromache, for
I don’t believe that young lady could very well persuade herself
to forgive you after this public scandal. It is a stupid affair
altogether. I thought you were flirting, but an engagement! Good
heavens! What do you imagine to be the value of a gentleman’s word? A
promise of marriage is not a thing that can be lightly made, because
it is not a thing that can ever be lightly broken. The man is called a
cad, and the woman a jilt; and both are greatly the worse for such a
reputation.”

Rudolph said nothing, but his way of turning on his pillow was a direct
appeal for mercy. The baron felt it to be so, and got up, believing
that the heavy responsibilities of uncle were accomplished with grace
and dignity.

When the illustrious Dr. Galenides called next day, he found his
patient so far recovered that he felt disposed to sit at his bedside,
and chat with him in a friendly way.

“My dear young friend,” he said, cheerfully, “it is the fault of
youth, and perhaps, in a measure, its virtue, to be too precipitate.
If intelligent young people could only be induced to take for their
motto that wise and ancient precept, ‘Μησἑν ἁγαν’--which I believe the
French translate as ‘le juste milieu,’--there would be no such thing as
maidens forced to avenge themselves by means of a pistol, nor young men
deserving such treatment.”

Rudolph shrank a little, and said, with assumed coldness:

“Pray, doctor, do not think hardly of her. I behaved badly to her, and
only cowardice kept me from going to her and asking her to forgive me.”

Dr. Galenides smiled and bowed.

“She is regarded as a heroine now.”

“And I, my uncle tells me, as a cad,” cried Rudolph, bitterly.

“Well, not exactly as a hero, I have to admit.”

“Have you heard how she is, doctor?”

“Very ill indeed--brain fever,--but she is young and strong.”

“Doctor, if you see her, will you take her a message? I dare not write.
Tell her my sufferings have been greater than hers, and tell her I
shall always remember her as a sweet and charming girl far too good for
me. I hope she will be happy. As for me, doctor, my life is wrecked
upon the threshold.”

“One always thinks so at twenty-two. At thirty-two one understands
that it is rather difficult to wreck a man’s life. Get well, my dear
Monsieur Ehrenstein. Life is a very pleasant thing, I assure you, full
of kindly surprise and interest. And remember the wise motto of my old
friends--‘Μησἑν ἁγαν’--neither extreme, the just middle,” ended the
physician, balancing by way of illustration a paper knife upon his
finger.

While Dr. Galenides was putting on his gloves, the baroness entered
the room, accompanied by Pericles Selaka. Rudolph’s face went bright
scarlet, and then turned white, with a pinched, and anxious expression.

“You, Pericles!” cried Dr. Galenides, with something like alarm in his
voice. “I was on my way to you.”

“Oh, I am much better to-day, and wanted very much to see how this
other patient of yours is getting on,” said Selaka, approaching.

“Are you ill, too?” asked Rudolph, excitedly.

“A little unwell, but it is nothing,” answered Selaka, with a smile, as
he took Rudolph’s hand and held it.

Dr. Galenides glanced significantly at the baroness, and went away.

Selaka leant across the side of the bed, and looked steadily at
Rudolph, over whom the baroness was hovering with maternal attentions.
The sick man reached out his hand to take his aunt’s, and held it an
instant to his lips.

“Poor fellow! you will be excited in a minute,” said the baroness.

“It is kind of you, Herr Selaka, to come to me,” Rudolph said, in
German.

“I am sorry for what has happened,” returned Selaka. “I know nothing
more regrettable than the frantic precipitancy and anger of youth.
I cannot understand why you should have made a promise you did not
consider binding, or why, having made it, you should have broken
it. It would not be my place to speak upon a matter so delicate and
so private, did I not feel, through a member of my family, partly
responsible for your misbehaviour.”

“I doubt the utility or kindness of scolding the wrong-doer when the
mischief is done,” interrupted the good-natured baroness.

“Scold! I trust I do not seem to scold, madame,” said Selaka, opening
his eyes, and thrusting out his hand with an air of stately reproach.
“Not even you can be more sorry for this young man’s misfortune. He
is much censured at present. But my voice is not amongst those that
censure him. I simply do not understand how he can have behaved so
unwisely. But my heart is filled with pity for him. I am sure he never
wished to wrong or pain any one, and I deeply feel that one of my name
should unconsciously have been the means of bringing this grief upon
him, and upon others. Had he trusted me when he first found his faith
wavering where he had hoped it anchored, I should have taken measures
to protect him from his own uncertain heart. Believe me, it would
have been best so, and you, my poor young friend, would have been the
happier.”

“Perhaps you are right, sir,” said Rudolph, wearily. “I am sure I
do not know. But tell me--tell me something about her--about your
daughter. Does she despise me?”

“She grieves for you, and deplores her own disastrous influence upon
you.”

“She need not. I do not desire that she should grieve for me,” cried
Rudolph. “You all speak of me as if I had committed some frightful
crime--a murder, a forgery, a felony--as if I had incurred indelible
shame. Granted I have misbehaved myself--we will even grant that I
have not acted as a gentleman--am I the first to find he had given his
promise to the wrong person?”

“Rudolph Ehrenstein, you well know you have done worse than this,--you
affronted your deserted bride by linking your life in the face of the
world with that of a woman who had already incurred public odium. This
is what grieves me most, and it is this step I feel that drove that
unhappy girl to her mad act.”

“We will not speak of her, if you please, Herr Selaka,” said Rudolph,
with a proud look. “As for Mademoiselle Natzelhuber, it wounds me that
she should be so cruelly misjudged. Believe me, under more fortunate
circumstances, she would have been a good woman. She is full of
kindness and sympathy for every phase of misery. She gives away the
money she earns more freely than many rich people spend that which they
inherit. She is an unhappy woman, sir; there is nothing base or shabby
in her, and I am not so sure that there is not a good deal that is
noble.”

“I can well believe you, Herr Rudolph. I have not the honour of knowing
Mademoiselle Natzelhuber, and the public voice rather loves to spread
abroad the fame of glaring vices than that of private virtues. The
lady, I believe, has made a point of shocking every accepted canon
of taste, and, of course, society revenges itself by painting her as
black as possible. But we Greeks, despite our French tastes, are a
very sober and a very moral people, and a step like yours takes away
our breath. This sounds like preaching, does it not? But I am grieved,
distressed. I would have given you Inarime,--once, I almost wished it.
However, it was useless to hope for that. My daughter’s heart is given
elsewhere, and it is well now that it is so. Still, had you told me of
this entanglement, had you left it in my power to aid you! Young men, I
know, sometimes shrink from opening their hearts to their parents and
relatives. But me you would have found indulgent and perhaps helpful.”

Rudolph stretched out his hand and Selaka clasped it warmly.

“Thank you, sir! It would have made all the difference if Inarime
thought as you do. Do you know why I came back to Athens?”

“I think I can guess,” said Selaka, smiling.

“Oh, I loved her so! and, Heaven help me, I cannot choose but love her
still. May I hope to see her, sir?” he asked, humbly.

“No, Herr Rudolph,” said Selaka, shaking his head. “That I cannot
permit, nor would she consent. In the years to come, when I shall be no
more, it will be for her to choose her friends, but as long as I stand
between her and the world those friends shall be spotless, or at least
their names shall be untainted by the breath of public scandal.”

“The lives of young men would be very different if all parents were
as particular and severe as you, Herr Selaka,” observed the baroness,
turning round from the window.

Rudolph moved upon his pillow, and covered his eyes with his arm.

“You are right, sir, I am not worthy to look upon her,” he said.

Suddenly there was heard from the hall an ominous sound, the louder
because of the stillness of the house. The baroness ran to the door
and held it open, listening anxiously. Could that voice, pitched in a
key of lofty indignation, be mistaken for other than the voice of an
angry hero? Ah, who but Miltiades, the glory of modern Athens, could
stride in that magnificent fashion through a hall, clatter and clang
his spurs along the tessellated pavement, rattle and shake the stairs,
the balustrade, with as much noise as all the heroes of Homer sacking
Ilion; nodding fearful menace in his crimson plumes and sending potent
lightning flames with his violet glances?

The baroness looked question and alarm at Selaka, and poor Rudolph,
cowed by weakness and fright, shuddered among his pillows, whiter far
than the linen that framed his face.

“Do not seek to bar my passage, menial,” Miltiades was roaring, as the
clatter and clang of sword and spurs approached the sick chamber. “It
is Monsieur Rudolph Ehrenstein I desire to see.”

Even Rudolph could not resist a ghastly smile at hearing his name
so curiously pronounced by the warrior. Miltiades stood upon the
threshold, and the baroness could not have looked more petrified if she
had found herself confronted by an open cannon.

“Madame,” said Miltiades, ever the pink of courtesy, as the brave
should be to the fair; after his most ceremonious military salute, he
advanced a step, and said, “I have a few words to say to your nephew,
Monsieur Rudolph Ehrenstein.”

“Enter, enter, I pray you, Captain Karapolos,” said the baroness in
rather halting but intelligible Greek. “My nephew is ill--as you see.
Perhaps you will consent to spare him the unpleasantness of a scene. He
is very ill.”

“So, madame, is my sister. Dr. Galenides tells me she will hardly
recover. Is this to be borne quietly--think you?”

“Kyrie Selaka, explain to him--I do not know Greek well enough. Tell
him how grieved, how miserably sad the baron and I are about this
business. Speak kindly for us and try to soothe him. I understand he
must be in a desperate state, and heaven knows how sincerely I pity
him. Oh, Rudolph, Rudolph, when will you young men learn to think of
others as well as yourselves?” she cried, distractedly.

“Captain Karapolos, this proceeding of yours is surely as unseemly as
it is futile,” said Selaka. “What good do you expect can come of such a
step? It will not restore your sister to health and happiness, and you
but needlessly inflict pain upon this lady, who is sincerely distressed
for you. My dear sir, the great lesson of life is, that the inevitable
must be accepted. We cannot go back on our good deeds or our ill, and
it is not now in the power of this young man to repair the mischief he
has done. The consequences of wrongdoing cannot be shirked by those who
suffer them, or by those who have done the wrong. They baffle each step
of flight and struggle, and hunt us down remorselessly.”

“My dear sir, such stuff may suit a pulpit or a university chair, but
it offends the ear of a soldier. I care not a jot for the inevitable,
and, as far as I am concerned, this young man will answer to me for his
evil deeds--to me, sir, Miltiades Karapolos, captain of King George’s
Artillery,” shouted Miltiades, slapping his chest emphatically.

Rudolph sat up in bed, and asked feebly:

“Did he say, Herr Selaka, that Andromache is very ill?”

Selaka bowed, and Miltiades glared interrogation.

“Dangerously ill?”

“It appears so.”

“Oh, good God! what a wretch I have been! Please tell him, if she
gets better, and will consent to forgive me, I will gladly fulfil my
engagement. Tell him it was not because Andromache ceased to be dear
to me that I left her, but that, loving somebody else, I felt I had
ceased to be worthy of her. Tell him it was not, heaven knows, for my
pleasure I so acted, that it was a horrible grief to me.”

Miltiades glanced suspiciously from one to the other, and looked
annihilation and contempt upon the sick youth.

“What does the fellow say?” he demanded, fiercely.

Selaka faithfully repeated Rudolph’s message. If Miltiades had been
thunder before, he was lightning now added. He stalked to the bed,
struck Rudolph full in the face, and without another word strode from
the room.

“Good gracious!” cried the baroness, and fell limply into a chair.

“I must get well now,” muttered Rudolph, between his teeth.

Next day Agiropoulos and the popular poet called. It was known all over
Athens that, as well as having been shot at by the sister, Rudolph had
been struck by the brother. Agiropoulos took a fiendish delight in
the situation. Personally he asked nothing better than to console the
heroine as soon as she should have struggled back from the encompassing
shadows of unreason. He was quite ready to place at her disposal
fortune, hand, and heart, as much as he possessed of that superfluous
commodity, which, it must be confessed, was little enough. He loved
notoriety in any form, and was enchanted with the veil of romance that
enveloped Andromache, not in the least scrupulous upon the point that
the veil was smirched with powder and blood. If possible, these unusual
stains but gave an added impetus to his interest.

“Well, my young friend,” he said, sitting down and elegantly crossing
his legs, while, the better to survey the sorry hero of the tragedy, he
adjusted his eye-glass with that peculiar grimace common to those thus
decorated. “You look a little the worse for Mademoiselle Andromache’s
last embrace--eh?” he queried, and turned with a smile to the popular
poet.

“He has the air of Endymion after the desertion of Diana,” said the
poet.

“Was Endymion deserted? Faith, that is a piece of mythological
information for me. We live and learn, eh, Ehrenstein?”

“I suppose so,” said Rudolph, drearily. “The learning is not more
pleasant than the living.”

“You charming boy! so delightful to know that innocence still
flourishes in our midst. The century is exhausted, but a young heart
is a perennial fount of misery. For, my young friend, there is no more
sure prophecy of youth and innocence than utter woe and dejection. If
you give him time, Michaelopoulos will put that into a neat verse for
you.”

“Don’t, pray. I hate poetry,” cried Rudolph.

“It is, I believe, on record that babes have been known to hate milk,”
said Agiropoulos, blandly.

“Don’t weary me with smart talk. I have other things to think of,
Agiropoulos, and cannot listen to your witticisms,” protested Rudolph.

“Don’t mention it. I will be dull to please you. May a poor forsaken
wretch inquire after the health of a quondam mistress?”

“Agiropoulos, if you have not got the breeding of a gentleman, try to
remember when you are in the presence of one,” cried Rudolph.

“Whew!” whistled Agiropoulos, with his enigmatic smile.

“I suppose, Ehrenstein, you don’t exactly want another challenge?”

“I want nothing, and I most certainly don’t want you.”

“Is this delirium, think you, Michaelopoulos?”

“Looks uncommonly like it,” the poet replied.

“Let me feel your pulse, Monsieur Endymion--what an appropriate
comparison for the moment! That young gentleman was, we are given
to understand, partial to the recumbent attitude. But we are rather
embarrassed by our choice of Selene. Which shall it be, Ehrenstein,
first, second or third?”

“Will you do me the favour of leaving my room, sir?” ordered Rudolph,
frigidly. “When I have finished with Captain Miltiades Karapolos, I
shall be happy to dispose of your claims, Agiropoulos, and then of your
friend’s, if he thinks proper to demand the privilege.”

“And then of each of the desposyné Inarime’s suitors, comprising a list
of two members of parliament, a mayor, a justice of the peace, forty or
fifty bachelor islanders and a distinguished archæologist. Don’t forget
the archæologist, I implore you, Rudolph. Demolish him before you touch
me, or Michaelopoulos--the name is rather long, but practice will
accustom your tongue to it--besides, your mellifluous German will be a
substantial aid. First lay low the mighty Karapolos, and in a moment
you avenge five thousand desolate Turkish hearths--have they hearths
in Turkey? Then give the deathly accolade to the archæologist. After
that, of course, these two humble individuals are entirely at your
disposal, as the courtly Spaniards say. Do you know Spanish? Neither
do I. Ta-ta, my friend. You have a heavy day’s work before you when
you get well, Monsieur Endymion. To sweep off the face of the earth a
Greek hero, a Greek poet, a Greek merchant, a Turkish archæologist, an
insular demarch, two members of parliament, a justice of the peace, and
fifty Teniotes. Lead me from the presence of this bloodthirsty youth,
friend. I shudder,” cried Agiropoulos.

Mighty is the passion of anger--mightier far than that of love. Anger
lifted Rudolph out of his sick bed, and placed him, one chill November
morning, opposite Miltiades in a lonely field under the Shadow of
Lycabettus, with Hadji Adam for his antagonist’s second and the French
Viscount for his own. The duel terminated for Rudolph, as nineteenth
century duels frequently do, but Miltiades was imprisoned for fourteen
days in his own room in Solon Street, with a soldier mounted guard
outside, for his colonel, with an unheroic disregard for the laws of
honour, judged his act an infringement of military law.

While Rudolph, with bitterness in his heart and humiliation on
his brow, was speeding back to Cannes and to Photini, Agiropoulos
progressed favourably with his wooing. Half-dead with shame at her
notoriety, poor Andromache asked nothing better than a chance of
getting away for ever from Athens.




CHAPTER XXX.

CONTAINS A RELICATION AND A PROMISE.


Two men coming by opposite directions down Hermes Street, with their
eyes anywhere but where they ought to have been, stumbled into each
other’s arms, and started back instantly, with aggressive question on
their faces.

“Well, Constantine,” one cried, eyeing the other furtively and
distrustfully.

“Well, Stavros,” the other responded, with a corresponding expression.

“Here’s my hand, Constantine,” Stavros said, after a reflective pause,
and held out his hand with an air of strenuous cordiality. “Touch it.
It’s a loyal hand, and an honest one. I was always your friend, always
liked you.”

“And so did I,” assented Constantine, as he laid his upon the extended
palm shamefacedly.

“What! yourself? I never doubted it, my dear fellow.”

“No, you,” Constantine muttered sulkily.

“Come, that’s like old times,” roared Stavros, putting an arm through
the unreluctant Selaka’s, and wheeling him round towards Constitution
Square. “It does me good to hear you after our stupid quarrel.”

“Yes, it was stupid,” Constantine admitted.

The glorious Miltiades, crossing the square, hailed them with his
full-dress military salute, and hurrying up, shook them boisterously
by the hand and bestowed the clap of patronage upon their backs, while
a humorous twinkle in his handsome eyes betrayed remembrance of their
heroic encounter.

“The reconciliation of the Inseparables! A sight for the gods. Achilles
and Agamemnon, I am profoundly rejoiced at your good sense.”

“Friends can shake hands, I suppose, Captain Karapolos, without all
this ado,” sneered Stavros, resentfully.

“So they can, but I could not resist the temptation to stop and offer
my congratulations. Hoch! Trinken sie wein!” he shouted, proud of his
German, and turned on his heel laughing heartily.

“The greatest idiot in all Athens,” exclaimed Stavros, scowling after
him.

The reconciled friends seated themselves at a table, called for coffee,
and began to roll up cigarettes.

“I’ll tell you a secret, Constantine,” said Stavros, as he leaned
across and spoke in the subdued tone of confidence. “That Oïdas is an
unconscionable blackguard. You always thought it, I know, and you were
right.”

Selaka, perfectly conscious that he had never imparted any such opinion
of Oïdas to Stavros, blinked uneasily, and took upon himself the air of
full admission.

“You found him out?” he interrogated, cautiously.

“I should think so,” Stavros exclaimed, waving his hand
comprehensively. “But there are limits to my endurance. I am going to
throw him over. I have compromised myself by being mixed up with such
a fellow. He has money--and he makes no scruple of his use of it.”

“You showed a fine tolerance, too, my friend.”

It still made Constantine sore to reflect that his closest friend had
been bought over by the richer man.

“No, truly. You are quite in error. It was not the money, but I thought
I could do so much better for my family. You see, Constantine, a man
must hold no private feelings in abeyance when the interests of the
family call upon him to silence them. You cannot have imagined our
quarrel was not a cause of real distress to me. But now we are good
friends, eh?”

“That depends. Why do you dislike Oïdas?”

“Oh, for several reasons. He behaved like a villain all round to me, to
you and to your family. I mean to expose him. He promised to make room
for us at the University and to get my son that post I have so long
coveted for him. He has not fulfilled a single obligation he contracted
with me. I had much better have trusted to you. You are not rich, and
the golden mist through which he shines dazzled me. I did not expect
him to come to me direct, and to sue me with soft talk. We all do the
best we can for ourselves, Constantine, and often the best is barren of
result.”

“Well, I don’t want to be hard on you now that you have come to see
your error. You have thrown him over then?”

“Quite so. We are quits. Some time my hour of revenge will come--it
always does if patiently waited for, and if you like to join me, it
will be yours too. You don’t imagine, I hope, that I had anything to
do with that wretched article about Inarime in the ‘Aristophanes’? I
abused him for it horribly. He instigated it, you know.”

“Oïdas! the mighty heavens! His motive, Stavros?”

“He heard about that Turkish fellow, and Agiropoulos very maliciously
assured him he had no chance. He was wild when he knew it was all round
Athens that he wanted to marry a girl who didn’t want him. He took it
into his head he was flouted and mocked, and he resolved to bespatter
the girl with as much mud as possible.”

“The villain! the hound!” Constantine muttered, incapable of coherent
speech or thought.

“She is back in Tenos, I believe?”

Constantine nodded, with blazing inward-seeing eyes.

“He is in Athens--buoyed up, I suppose, with hope.”

“He! Who?”

“Your romantic Reineke,--a handsome fellow, too?”

“Where is he staying?”

“Just opposite,--the Grande Bretagne.”

Constantine rose with an undefined purpose, and Agiropoulos, lazily
sauntering across the square, nodded and placed an arresting hand on
his shoulder.

“My dear fellow! How fares it with your island Majesty? Such a comfort
to have a vestige of royalty,--even spurious royalty in our midst, now
that the real thing has temporarily migrated to Denmark.”

“How do you do, Agiropoulos?” said Stavros, crossly.

“Ah, my excellent friend Stavros! The fiery principals! How thrilling!
Zeus! that was a bloody encounter! May I implore the soothing charm of
your society--with a cigarette? Athens is so dull. All the interesting
personages of our drama have vanished, and there is not the ghost of a
sensation to rouse us.”

“Are you not going to be married?” snarled Stavros.

“Yes, the silken chains of Hymen will shortly weave their spell around
me. The individual sheds his personality upon the gamelian threshold,
and the dual is evolved. Do I transgress the proprieties of speech?
Alas! my poor single and consequently unhappy friends, you must forgive
the metaphysical impetuosities of a contemplating bridegroom.”

He gracefully extracted a cigarette from a dainty silver case, and
gazed amorously into space.

“Miss Karapolos is well?” Constantine asked.

“She is admirably well--and looks it, and your kind inquiry leaves me
your debtor. The virgin blush of health and heroism mantles her brow,
and she is all the better for her little misadventure and the fever,
which fortunately for me, the happy successor, has entirely carried off
the susceptible humours of an earlier fancy.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Constantine exclaimed, heartily. “It is very
wise of her to marry at once, and shake herself free of the whole
affair. It must be unpleasant for you, however.”

“Not in the least, my friend. In the interests of the dramatic I am a
willing sufferer; I will go so far as to describe myself a delighted
martyr. I adore the drama, and if there is a thing that wearies me,
it is the thought of monotonous and tame maidenhood. Mademoiselle
Karapolos, in default of a warlike Hector, which a mind more classical
might exact, will next month graciously condescend to accept my name in
the genitive case. Kyria Agiropoulou (Poor girls! it is sad to think
that they are not allowed the privilege of a surname in the nominative
case) is a heroine with a touch of flame and fire in her veins. I have
none myself, and it gratifies me to know that the destructive influence
of two phlegmatic temperaments is happily avoided for my posterity.”

“Good heavens! Who is that?” cried Constantine, standing, and with
his hand grasped the back of a chair, and stared amazedly at a slowly
advancing carriage.

Agiropoulos turned round with more haste than his boast of a phlegmatic
temperament warranted, gazed with impertinent and complacent curiosity
through his eye-glass at a carriage bowling gaily down from the
Boulevard d’Amélie, which contained an ostensible Indian prince, dark
but not beautiful, who leaned his head indolently against the shoulder
of a fashionable young Athenian lady, whose mother sat alone with her
back to the horses.

“Typical of the graceful and amiable abandonment of modern life,”
lisped Agiropoulos. “The prince has diamonds and rupees in abundance. A
little must be conceded such a happy being. If this public concession
succeed in the regular way--the mamma on the front seat and the
gentleman on the back, in her place, with his head negligently pillowed
on the daughter’s shoulder--think of the gain, my friends. Oh, I see
it on your lips, my excellent Constantine, but spare me the Scriptures.
I can stand most things but a biblical quotation. Strange, it is
only then I discover I possess that distressing outcome of modern
life--nerves. What does it matter--the loss of soul against the gain
of the world? I know the quotation. The young lady probably has no
soul--why should she? A soul is the most inconvenient thing I know of,
except perhaps a conscience.”

“I call it a disgraceful sight. If the prince does not marry her?”
thundered Selaka, indignantly.

“Which is very likely, my dear fellow. In that case the mamma will
bring her spotted lamb to Paris, or perhaps London, or naughtier
Vienna, and the stain of the royal head will be washed off her shoulder
by less magnificent wedding favours.”

“You are brutally cynical, Agiropoulos. Thank God, I live on an
innocent island where one never hears such thoughts expressed.
Good-bye, Stavros.”

“You are indeed an enviable mortal, dropped into this mire out of that
Arcadia. But go, leave the dust and depravity of this much too exciting
town, and return to your shepherds and flocks and peaceful mountain
altitudes. To us, alas! the glitter and distracting noises!”

“Good-bye for the present, Constantine. I can’t tell you what a relief
it is to be friends with you again.”

“Stay! one word, I pray your Majesty,” chimed the imperturbable
Agiropoulos. Selaka flung round uneasily, and frowned on him
inquiringly. “Relieve an anxious mind. Is the beautiful nymph of the
hills well?”

“My niece?”

“The peerless maid of Tenos! Who else? The modern Helen! Strange
that history should repeat itself. How many Iliums have since been
burnt, albeit it takes by our humble calculations less than ten years
nowadays. That’s the beauty of the calendar. It ties us to dates, and
the newspapers do their best to tie us to hard facts.”

“They don’t always succeed,” sneered Constantine.

“There speaks the voice of wisdom--with apologies to our editor. The
‘Aristophanes’ flourishes, I hope? So Helen is well. When does she
settle down to serene wifehood in the house of Menelaus?”

“Let my niece alone, sir. You are not acquainted with her. The respect
of women is a commendable virtue in young men,” Constantine growled,
turning on his heel.

Gustav Reineke was writing in his room when Constantine was announced.
He started up, confused and wondering, keeping the hand which held his
pen pressed upon the papers on the table, and looked inquiringly at
Inarime’s uncle.

“Kyrie Selaka,” he said, and smiled vaguely.

“We are strangers known to one another by repute,” said Constantine,
who bowed and held out his hand with the singularly gentlemanly ease of
the islander.

Reineke took his hand and pressed it warmly. Read in the illumination
of his ardent hopes, this visit was a gracious augury which it behoved
him to receive with visible and cordial satisfaction.

“Be seated, pray,” he said, and the smile that lit up his dark serene
face was as winning as a child’s.

“I suppose you are astonished to see me, sir.”

“I am deeply grateful--yes, and a little astonished. You have come, I
suppose, to bring me news of her?”

“Of--not _from_ her,” Constantine said, prudently. “I am not deputed by
any one, you understand.”

His brows shot up with secretive purpose, and his eager glance was
full of a meaning it puzzled Reineke to read. He nodded affirmatively,
and the light upon his face sobered to the proper tone of unexpectant
resignation.

“I am grateful under any circumstances. To hear _of_ her is second
best, and it is not given to man often to get anything so good as
second best,” he said, calmly.

“You are a philosopher, sir, and philosophy is beyond me. My niece
is well--patient as you might apprehend. But that mad brother of
mine is just an obstinate old idiot. He will hear neither of reason
nor expediency. You had the misfortune to be born a Turk, and it is
your fatality. He has some curious idea that man cannot enter into
strife with fate. He never had much brains for aught but books, and I
have observed that books have a naturally weakening effect upon the
intelligence.”

Gustav laughed tolerantly, and ostentatiously trifled with his papers.

“You see I too consume paper and the midnight oil.”

“I’ve no doubt of it. You’d have shown yourself more sensible in this
affair if you didn’t.”

“As--for instance?”

“You’d have carried your case high-handedly, and reduced the maniac
to reason. What are lovers for but to create scenes and bear away the
maiden upon the wings of melodrama?”

Gustav coloured and bent his eyes upon the table. This was hardly the
sort of man with whom he cared to discuss a matter so very delicate
that speech almost affected it as touch affects the bloom of a peach.

“Your brother is well?” he merely asked.

“Pericles! Far from it. He has never rightly recovered from that bad
attack after--after--the time you thrashed that scoundrel Oïdas. You
remember?”

Gustav reddened darkly, and then paled as suddenly. His eyes took the
deadly brilliance of a panther’s, and he said under his breath:

“I remember,” closing his teeth upon the memory.

“I never had an opportunity of thanking you,” Constantine cried,
jumping up and insisting on shaking Reineke’s hands as if they were
pump handles. Gustav gravely endured the operation, but when the
exuberant Greek, in his anxiety to discharge his conscience of arrears
of gratitude, bent his head and bestowed two kisses on his cheeks,
Reineke withdrew a little, and lifted his slow Oriental gaze in mild
reproof.

“You owe me nothing,” he said, impassively.

“Nothing!” protested Constantine, noisily, “and the honour of our
family vindicated! A miserable coward punished! By the Olympian gods!
but you are a fellow! How my heart rejoiced! I could have danced!”

Gustav’s face sharpened in the shadow of lassitude. The unnecessary
violence of Constantine’s mood oppressed and irritated him, but he
simply gazed patient inquiry at him, and meekly awaited the promised
news of Inarime.

“So you see, Herr Reineke--I suppose I may call you by that more
familiar name?--(Gustav bowed) you have made me your friend in this
matter, and I am resolved you shall have Inarime some day. It will be
so easy, if you once forget that you are a Turk.”

“It is kind of you--most kind, but I fail to see how you will be able
to accomplish it if Inarime’s father refuses his consent.”

“But, the chief bar removed, there will be no reason why he should
withhold his consent. We’ll see, we’ll see,” continued the uncle.
“There’s a way out of all difficulties. Pericles will come to his
senses some day. But you are right to respect his prejudices, and so
is she. In the abstract, that is. I would persecute him if it were my
case. But lovers are ticklish creatures to advise or interfere with.
In the meantime, if you will keep me informed of your whereabouts, I
will let you know how matters progress, and will send for you on the
slightest chance of success after acquainting him with your readiness
to become one of us.”

“You will? Kyrie Selaka, I know not how to thank you. Oh, this is
indeed much--it is much,” Gustav breathed fervently.

“Not at all. I like you, and I want to see you and my niece happy.
Hope! it is I, Constantine Selaka, who bid you.”

Reineke paced the room awhile in silence, keenly observed by his
companion, and sat down to stare idly out of the window. Phrases of
Inarime’s letter to Miss Winter recurred to him like buoyant messages.

“You will be here for some time?” Constantine asked.

“As long as you like--as long as you bid me hope.”

“That is well. You are a distinguished personage, Herr Reineke, and it
will not be difficult to find you.” Then in a lighter tone, dismissing
the graver personal matter, he broke into town gossip.

“I have just met that impertinent young man Agiropoulos. You heard, I
suppose, he is going to marry that little heroine, the Karapolos girl?”

“How should I? But it is well. A woman is all the better for being
hedged round with the conventionalities of life; and in no case are
they so powerfully protecting as when they chain her by marriage,
when, practically speaking, she ceases to be a responsible agent,”
Reineke said, and added as an afterthought, to exclude Inarime from the
slightly contemptuous classification, “that is, the average woman, that
unexplained engine of impulse and unreason.”

“Poor little creature! She was hard hit. I wonder what has become of
her recreant lover.”

“Young Ehrenstein?”

“Yes. He levanted, you know, with that piano-playing woman, the
Natzelhuber.”

“I met them in Paris a month ago.”

“You did? And they are still living together?”

“Most wretchedly. I cannot understand a man choosing degradation
and misery because the particular happiness he sets his heart on
is beyond his grasp. Women! Yes. If they can’t have the best, they
plunge themselves into the worst. They are in extremes of goodness and
badness, and scorn half-measures. I daresay poor young Ehrenstein finds
a woman’s satisfaction in contrasting his present with the future that
might have been.”

“Quite a boy! Miserable, you say. Did you speak to him?”

“No. He was with Mademoiselle Natzelhuber. I would have stopped, but
he glowered on me so forbiddingly that perforce I had to pass on in
silence and without bowing. Doubtless he read commiseration in my
glance, and resented it. They had been quarrelling, and each seemed an
unloved burden to the other.”

“And you heard nothing?”

“I met Mademoiselle Natzelhuber afterwards in a fashionable salon.
She had been drawn out of her tub, by what means I know not, and with
Diogenes’ contempt, consented to play. The soul of despair and unrest
was in her fingers. It was the saddest music I ever heard. I spoke to
her of Rudolph, and she implored me to take him off her hands. She said
he bored her, and the sight of him filled her with inexplicable anger.
I got their address, and when I called, she received me, and threatened
to tear me to pieces if I sought to interfere between them. As I walked
away, I glanced up at the window, and saw Ehrenstein looking down
listlessly upon me. His face was the face of a lost soul.”

Gustav’s voice dropped to a whisper. Constantine sat thrumming the
table with his fingers, and jerked his head up and down disconsolately.

“It is an awful story,” he said.

“It has burnt a hateful picture on my mind. I remember the day I first
saw that boy on the Acropolis--a mere innocent, unhappy boy. Now he
drowns his misery in brandy and shuns his equals. I heard at a club
that he plays heavily and is steeped in vice.”

“The Lord succour him! He was a child when he came to Athens. As for
that wretched woman who has brought him to this----”

“She did not. We are needlessly hard on women. He walked into the pit
with his eyes open, and she was simply an instrument of his own choice.
If she had not been there, he would have found other means,” said
Gustav.




CHAPTER XXXI.

SELAKA’S LAST WORD.


Winter had lashed the Eastern world with sharp frenzy, and now early
spring was raging over the plain of Attica, driving madly in a
whirlwind of dust down from the encircling hills, with its breath of
ice and its shrewish roar. And soon it would be at its verge, and stand
on tiptoe with wistful glance set upon the hurrying summer that so soon
would consume its flowers and grasses and chattering rills.

Still Gustav lingered at Athens studying archæology and patiently
waiting for Constantine’s message of hope. Exploring expeditions helped
him through the long leisure. The last proposed by Miss Winters was
to Vari, to do homage to the mythical Cave of Pan, where Plato was
dedicated to Apollo and the Muses.

Gustav drove round from his hotel at seven o’clock in the morning
to pick up Miss Winters and her paraphernalia, at her lodgings in
front of the Columns of Jupiter. Upon the mountains, hue upon hue lay
intermelted in one transfused whole of indescribable loveliness. The
great forked flanks of Hymettus looked so desolate against the joy
of the sky, as to suggest that here had Prometheus been chained and
had stamped it with the legacy of permanent sadness. Under the hills
stretched on either side wide fields sheeted with blood-red poppies;
the birds woke the air with song, and the air was full of the lovely
scent of the pine. Gustav’s senses thrilled to the exquisite charm of
the hour, and Miss Winters’ gaze was a prayer and a thanksgiving.

When they had devoutly visited the shrine, difficult of access, and
had come back into the pine region, flushed and tired and heated by
the blaze of sunfire, they were accommodated by a courteous villager
with an empty room, into which a table newly-washed and two chairs
were introduced as additional helps to lunch. The villager supplied
them with boiled eggs, water and bread, which was being baked at the
general oven in the middle of the place, and Gustav produced a bottle
of Santorin wine, some fruit and cold chicken. For a forlorn lover he
ate a very hearty meal, and took an animated pleasure in supplying the
absence of attendance.

After lunch they went and sat on a little wooden seat, and while Gustav
smoked, Miss Winters, to the complete astonishment of these simple
folk, fed all the dogs of the place upon bread and chicken just as if
they had been Christians. Greek dogs are never fed, they pick up what
they can here and there, and shrink instinctively from man, whose only
caress is a kick.

“That old man is very ill,” Miss Winters said at length.

“Which old man?”

“That old heathen of Tenos, of course.”

“Oh! Selaka!”

“Yes. I met his brother yesterday. He was attending somebody in the
house, and I asked to see him.”

“Truly, you are a marvellous woman, and a most excellent friend,” said
Gustav.

“I reckon I can seize an opportunity, and don’t fail for the want of
pluck and keeping my eyes open. The brother is a doctor.”

“I know. Constantine. They call him the King of Tenos.”

“Tenos seems to be the home of idiots. Well, the pagan is very
ill--heart-disease--doomed. The doctor is on your side, and says if you
will go to Tenos, in about ten days he will be there to meet you, and
thinks it not improbable that the old lunatic may be talked into reason
before he goes to--Hades or elsewhere.”

Reineke reddened slightly and breathed hard, but he said nothing. The
mere hope meant too much for speech. To touch again land so sacred as
her island home, to look upon the fastnesses which enshielded her from
the world--to see her, feel her, hear her, divine her nearness by every
acute sense quickened to an ache. Perhaps----

Thought could go no farther. He rose and flung away his cigarette with
a passionate gesture, and began to pace the dusty path while the driver
got the horses ready for their return. He seemed to see Inarime’s face,
not the landscape, and his heart throbbed with the wonder of it. He was
silent during the drive home, and sat till far into the night on his
balcony, watching the stars come out in the soft blue gloom and wink
and play like illuminated shuttles upon their glossy background.

Ten days later he came to say good-bye to his friend. The charming
old lady stood in front of him, and peered into his face with kindly
question. A soft smile stirred the grave depths of his dark intense
eyes as he gave her back her look, and tenderly lifted her hand to his
lips.

“No matter what happens, our friendship must be lifelong,” he said.

“Yes, I mean to fall frantically in love with your wife. You will bring
her right along to Washington City to see me, and I’ll have my book on
Greece ready, to present you with a copy on your marriage.” She raised
herself on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

“Now go straight away to Tenos, and I guess you’ll carry the day,” she
added.

It was not Aristides who met him this time upon the little quay of St.
Nicholas, but insular majesty itself.

“The King of Tenos,” said Gustav, smiling as he shook hands with
Constantine.

“The slave of Tenos--the devil take the lot,” cried Dr. Selaka,
angrily. “I haven’t a moment to myself once I land on this wretched
island. Because they make me deputy, I must look after all their
ailments gratis; I must stand godfather for all their children, which
means presents illimitable and care for the rest of my days; I must
lend my house for marriages, and give marriage breakfasts to all the
daughters--dowries sometimes, and last, but not least, I must submit
to be carried about the island, up those massacring mountain paths and
down destructive precipices, while the idiots fire off pistols and
guns in the exuberance of their spirits, until I am smothered with
smoke and half-dead with fright.”

“I see there are drawbacks to the glory of a seat in the Boulé.”

“I rather think so. Oh! the monsters! I am compelled to sneak down all
the back lanes to escape them. Come this way. Our mules are hidden
under yonder filthy archway.”

How familiar the ride seemed to Gustav, although he had only twice
ridden through this strange scenery. He recognised every field and
hedge, each cleft in the mountains, the cave of Aiolos, and the little
forsaken fountain with the figures of St. Michael, St. George and the
Virgin Mary roughly carven upon a marble slab by some unknown hand in
the seventeenth century. A thin vein of water flowed from the torrent
above into the fountain with a tinkling sound that broke the silence
very sadly. How desolate in the stillness looked the interminable lines
of marble hills stained with burnt thyme and furze, the great jagged
rocks tinted with gold and red and purple and grey, forked against the
sapphire sky, and the dim grey glades of olives below! Desertion lay
upon all, and the beauty was the beauty of neglect and barrenness.
And above towered the Castro, slanting down from the upper world,
greyer, sterner than ever, with the rocky desert of Bolax behind, and
the villages afar, so white and tiny, tangled upon the slopes, curve
flowing after curve to the horizon, the cornfields and meadows touching
the scene to life, and the sea breaking into the wide green plain of
Kolymvithra like a lake. Here and there a forgotten faded lemon showed
through the orchards, and the geraniums were as drops of blood upon the
leaves. How dear and homelike, how personal it all appeared to him!
Inarime it spoke of. No sound came to him but the clamour of the frogs
among the moist reeds of the torrent-beds, or the liquid flow of bird
music from the trees, broken by occasional farm cries and the bark of
watch dogs.

Pericles Selaka knew that his days were numbered. He was filled with
the trouble and indecision of his daughter’s future. But the thought of
relenting towards Gustav--Daoud Bey, as he now bitterly called him--did
not enter his mind. His anger against Gustav was the more unreasonable
and fierce because of his affection and admiration for the man. What
right had a scholar and a gentleman to prove nothing better than a
miserable Turk? Inarime grieved for the fellow. Of course. And did he
not grieve for her grief? Were there not moments of yearning to throw
off this intolerable cloak of resolution, and send for Gustav to make
his daughter happy? Had she not a right to happiness? She was young and
beautiful. The thought of such beauty as hers dropping unwedded into
the grave exasperated him. But a renegade Turk!

The day of Gustav’s arrival, Selaka was alone in the sitting-room.
Inarime had gone to the fountain for Annunziata, who was busy preparing
the midday breakfast. By an unaccountable impulse, Selaka’s thoughts
flew back to his short married life, and, standing upon the threshold
of memory, struck him with the force of reality. Tears shook upon
his eyelids, and suddenly he raised his head with a listening air.
A delicate breeze seemed to sweep past him, and played about his
forehead and hair like caressing fingers. Then it came back again and
approached him like a soft regretful sigh. He rose, impelled by an
influence which he felt it a pleasure to obey, and followed the sighing
breeze. The blinds were drawn to keep out the glare of the noonday sun,
and a ray from a chink broke into the twilight in a dazzling river of
gold. The air just lifted the blind, and breathed again about his face,
this time lingering like a kiss upon his lips; a rose-leaf kiss, that
very tender lips might give. He staggered against the framework of the
window, filled with a superstitious dread. Was this breath the soul of
his dead wife that floated about him with speechless message? Might
it not be that she was filled with concern for the coming solitude
of her forsaken child? Strive as he might against the insane idea,
it grew upon him, and took possession of his frighted senses. A damp
perspiration broke upon his brow, the pallor of terror was on his
cheek, and his heart beat against his side with suffocating blows.

Hardly knowing why, he held back the blind, and looked down into
the courtyard to see if any wind stirred among the flowers. All was
still. Not a leaf trembled; the flowers drooped in the drowsy heat of
a sultry summer day. He opened the window, and put out his hand. The
air was hot and motionless, and the watch-dog lay panting in the shade
of a palmtree. He closed the window, drew down the blind, and looked
through the soft gloom of the apartment. This time he shivered as the
whispering breath struck him full in the face, like a wing brushing
past. He stretched out his hands with a cry of protest and alarm, and
fell upon the floor in a swoon, with the name of his dead wife upon
his lips.

When Selaka opened his eyes, he found himself lying on the sofa, and
saw the face of Gustav Reineke bent over his anxiously. He stared in
awed amazement, shrank back a little, put up one hand and timidly
touched the young man as if to test his reality.

“You are better, sir?” asked Reineke, taking the hand, and he held it
in a warm, protective clasp.

“You! Daoud Bey,” muttered Selaka, indistinctly.

“Look on me as Gustav Reineke, I beg you, sir, and my presence will
hurt you less. The past is no more for me; have I not promised?” said
Gustav, gently.

“I am conquered, Gustav. I give her to you.”

Gustav gasped, and instinctively dropped on his knees beside the sofa.
He hid his face on the pillow, and burst into uncontrollable tears.
The sick man lay still, and watched him in a state of stupid fatigue
and torpor. Somebody entered the room, and crossing, touched Gustav’s
shoulder. He sprang to his feet, and met the serene brown glance of
Annunziata’s eyes.

“You are welcome, sir, you are very welcome,” she said, and held out
both hands, nodding with subdued approval.

Gustav took them, and shook them with a force that almost hurt. Yet he
wore the look of a man in a trance.

“You are a good, kind woman. Tell me where she is.”

“She is detained in the village. Go into the garden, and I will send
her uncle to fetch her.”

Gustav obeyed her, and passed out into the garden. How changed
everything was since his winter visit, eighteen months before. But
he hardly noted whither he went as he precipitated himself down the
oleander alley. The air quivered with light. The smell of the pines and
thyme floated up from the valley upon the summer wind that just stirred
the laurel leaves and plumes of the reeds in the torrent below. All
abroad sleepy delight, and within an immeasurable joy that touched on
anguish! He stood on the gravel path edged with blue and white irises,
and looked down upon the little goat road behind the zigzag of spiked
cactuses. The shadow of the kids, as they played, wavered upon the
silver light that sparkled and shook in liquid masses from the upper
rocks.

Would she come by that path? The eternal sunshine and the aching mist
of blue dazzled him as did his own overpowering happiness. The rapture
of the birds was a fit interpretation of his own rapture, and the
lizards, darting in and out of the rocks like shuttles quick with life,
were as his beating pulses. He loved everything, the water and flowers,
the quaint and tiny insects that flew around him, and the pigeons that
flashed through the air with an impetuosity he longed to rival.

A step behind him drained the blood from his heart, and he turned, sick
and frightened with the strength of passion.

Inarime was looking at him with equal fear and awe. Slowly and silently
their glances drew one another until their hands met, but speech was
beyond them. They did not speak at once nor embrace, but remained thus
standing and gazing, and then a flame sprang into Gustav’s intense
look, and spread like fire over his face.

“Inarime!” he murmured, and opened his arms.

She was in them enfolded, and their lips were one.

“Oh, Gustav, you have come to me,” cried Inarime.

“At last! At long last! Did it seem long to you, dearest?”

“Long! I tried so hard to do without you, but it grew harder each day.
But you are with me now, dear one.”

“Not again to leave you, Inarime. My own, how best shall I serve you?
How shall I treat you? It is as if a mortal were mated with a goddess.”

“You, too, O love, are to me as a god,” whispered Inarime.

“Nay, nay, beloved, you must not so exalt your worshipper,” protested
Gustav, laughing, while he drew her to a stone and gently forced her to
sit down, that he might kneel before her, and hold her clasped.

He looked up at her in mute adoration, and smiled. She framed his
dusky, glowing face with her hands, and her own, bent over it, looked
glorious in its joy.

“Dearest,” he cried, “bliss cannot madden or kill, or I should not now
be kneeling here, alive and sane.”

“Oh, Gustav, life is so short. No wonder lovers must have their
hereafter. We may not reach an end.”

“Nay, sweet, our life shall not be short; while others merely exist, we
shall live our days to the very full. Think of it--a future with each
other. Here, hereafter! It cannot be for us other than Paradise.”

“I love you, Gustav.”

“Goddess, I adore you.”

She pressed her cheek against his, and he felt her happy tears.

“My father will need me--us,” she said. “Come.”

They found Selaka waiting eagerly for them. Inarime had not seen him
since his seizure, and ran to him with a cry of pain, shocked to see
him look so ill.

“My son,” said Selaka, with laboured breath, “I would ask you much,
since I have given you so much.”

“There is nothing, sir, you can ask that I will not gladly grant,” said
Gustav, taking his hand.

“I would charge you with my dying breath not to resume your hateful
name. It would sting me in the grave if my daughter bore it.”

“It shall be as you wish, sir. Inarime will be the wife of Gustav
Reineke, and Daoud Bey is no more.”

The old man winced under the name, but feebly pressed Gustav’s hand.
Shaken with terror and regret for her own great bliss, Inarime knelt
beside the sofa, and looked beseechingly at her father.

“I have one other request to make to you, my children. You have been
kept apart long enough. I do not desire that my death should impose
a longer separation upon you. If you must mourn me--though I do not
desire that either--let it be together. Let not the grave overshadow
your wedding joys. Think of me, not as dead but as a disembodied spirit
that will hover around and about you in tender concern, sharing your
griefs, which it is my prayer may be few, and your delights, which
I hope will be many. Weep not for me, Inarime. Death is but a quiet
sleep, the grave but rest. You will have your husband. He will be all
to you--more even than I. Promise me, my beloved child, that you will
not grieve, and that there will be no delay in your marriage.”

Inarime crept closer to her father, and twined her arms round his neck.

“There, there, my girl. Gustav, you will be very tender to her.”

“Oh, sir, my life henceforth will be devotion to her.”

“Thank you, thank you. I feel it will be so. Take her now; comfort
her, and dry her tears. That is well. The arms that hold her now are
stronger than mine, the breast that pillows her head will henceforth be
its best protection. And should a son be born to you, my children, call
him Pericles after me, and bring him up to love greatly the great past
of my country. Come nearer, my sight grows dim. Call Annunziata, and my
brother. I would bid them farewell. You, Inarime, stay close to me. It
is with your dear hand in mine that I would go hence into the unknown.”

Constantine and Annunziata were waiting outside. But when they followed
Gustav into the dying man’s presence, Selaka had fallen into a doze. No
word was spoken. Annunziata wept silently: Constantine’s sobs were the
only sound; Inarime knelt watching her father’s face, and Gustav stood
over her with his arm about her neck. Selaka’s eyes opened, and flashed
with a ray of youth. He uttered his wife’s name in a loud, clear voice,
and then the light of life was extinguished.

Gustav bent and kissed Inarime.




CHAPTER XXXII.

CONCLUSION.


Time, summer afternoon, touching sunset, early in the month of
June.--Scene, the beach of Phalerum.

The band is playing a lively selection from Lecocq, whose works are
delighting the Athenians, interpreted by a third-rate French company
three times a week at the Olympian Theatre of Athens, and three times
nightly at the theatre of the Piræus. All the seats outside the Grand
Hotel are filled, as are those edging the golden strand where the
children are digging and making sand-pies--quantities of babies,
dressed in French taste, in English taste, and overdressed whatever the
taste, and quarrelling and making-up in a variety of tongues.

Every table shows a display of coffee cups, of liqueur glasses and of
empty ice plates. The Athenian gilded youth walk up and down, twirling
slim canes; with shorn heads, wide-brimmed hats, white trousers, and
moustaches turned up with emphasis. Droll youths with a serious belief
in their own fascinations, made up, some of them imprisoned in corsets.
Such boots and trousers, such coats and moustaches! Ah! misfortune to
the susceptible maidens of Athens! Their hour is surely come with these
lions abroad.

And the young ladies! Such chatter and beaming smiles, such hats,
high heels, ribbons, laces, veils, powder and perfume! Such miracles
of millinery produced without any regard to cost! Ah, there are two
sides to the picture, my friends, and is it quite so certain that
the lions facing these nymphs will have the best of the encounter?
There are enough uniforms here to convince the sceptical traveller
that he is in a land of heroes. Infantry officers of every rank, in
light blue. Numbers of artillerymen in black with crimson velveteen
collar and cuffs. Yes, there yonder is the glorious Miltiades, linked
with that Phœbus Apollo, Hadji Adam. How the heart gladdens at the
sight, how the nerves shake at the clanking of that terrible sabre
of his, at the rattle of his glittering spurs, and with what cordial
delight do we recognise his military salute and meet the condescension
of his hand-clasp! One singles out the pair instinctively, amid
the multiplicity of uniforms, above the rank and file of mere
marine officers and saucy midshipmen. For, be it known to benighted
foreigners, all male Athens dons a uniform, military or naval. Either
politics or the uniform nothing else counts. Epaulettes or the Bouléor
_le néant_.

And the band is playing--is playing with a desperate fervour, befitting
noisy, volatile Athens. The waiters are rushing wildly about with trays
of cognac and vermouth, of ices and coffee, the fragrance of Greek
tobacco fills the air, the chatter of human voices and the shrill cry
of excited children mingle with the soft murmur of the sea, that beats
so gently upon the sand. A charming hour, a charming scene. The sky
as blue as the lucid waters beneath; shifting hues wavering upon the
sharp mountain sides; the early lights flickering against the trees,
and the sound of happy laughter and speech heard above the band!

The blessed, foolish, frivolous people, self-intoxicated, needing
nothing but its daily gossip, its leaflets called newspapers, coffee
and cigarettes, the excitement of the half-hourly trains to Phalerum of
a summer evening, the rascalities of its politicians to denounce, along
with the nameless Turk and the faithless Mr. Gladstone, to the strains
of its bad, vivacious music!

With regret do I ask the reader to stand with me under the shade of the
Grand Hotel, and cast a farewell glance upon the scene. By the last
train from town old acquaintances arrive--a young pair on their wedding
tour. Three years ago we last saw one of them facing the hero of Greece
at an uncomfortable hour of the morning upon uncomfortable business.
Now he is the husband--of whom? Of whom but that elegant young lady of
the great world, Mademoiselle Eméraude Veritassi. They were married
at Rome, where the Baron von Hohenfels is Austrian plenipotentiary,
with Rudolph for one of his _attachés_. The bride and bridegroom have
taken Athens on their way to St. Petersburg, to which Embassy Rudolph
now belongs. Ehrenstein looks what he is--an aristocrat in faultless
attire, who has lived hard and enjoys the reputation of a strong
attachment to brandy and music. Pale, thin, stern and fastidious, with
an air of quiescent wretchedness. Poor Rudolph! Is this all that his
mutable affections have brought him--indifference and hopelessness?
Photini had died, and he had mourned her passionately, not her,
perhaps, but his blighted youth. And when he found Mademoiselle
Veritassi disposed to overlook his shady past for the sake of his
expectations, his wealth, and his fair, handsome face, it did not seem
to him he could do very much better than marry her.

They walked the beach once, and then returned, and seated themselves a
little above the Grand Hotel, Ehrenstein gloomily facing the sea while
he waited for his cognac; and his bride, in Worth’s latest splendours,
looking landwards, expecting an ice.

“See, Rudolph, here is my old flame, M. Michaelopoulos, the great
poet,” cried Eméraude, pleasantly excited.

“Indeed,” said Rudolph, stroking his moustache and indolently shifting
his eyes.

“Good heavens! Mademoiselle Veritassi! I forgot, a thousand excuses,
Madame Ehrenstein,” exclaimed the popular poet.

“My dear friend! Sit down and tell us all the news. Rudolph, order some
cognac for M. Michaelopoulos. And now, do tell me everything. What was
said about my marriage?”

“Athens rejoiced that Austria in you, Madame, should so wisely have
chosen,” said the poet, with a magnificent bow.

“No, truly? You mock me, sir. Does Austria, I wonder, think that
Greece chose as wisely?” asked the vivacious bride with an arch,
half-malicious glance at her morose husband.

“Could Austria think otherwise?” the poet replied.

“If such a humble person as myself may answer for Austria, I may
say that no better choice could have been made,” said Rudolph,
sarcastically.

“My friend, I mean to prove the wisdom of my choice.”

Rudolph raised his eyebrows in lazy interrogation.

“At the present you are simply an _attaché_,” explained his wife. “With
my good help you will become an ambassador. That was why I married you.
I always thought the position of ambassadress would suit me admirably.”

“So! You flatter me, Madame.”

“Why not? You surely did not think I was in love with you.”

“Well, I own I had some faint hope you returned my adoration.”

Eméraude glanced quickly at her husband, and smiled, a strange, hard
little smile. Lying back with half-shut eyes, she said to the poet:

“It is evident that my husband is on his wedding tour, judging by the
pretty things he says.”

“I shall doubtless reach perfection in that art under your amiable
tuition,” retorted the bridegroom, as he turned to inspect the crowd.

“They certainly don’t give the unblest any reason to envy their
happiness,” mused the poet. “Who would have thought that such a gentle,
girlish boy would turn into a bitter and cynical rake?”

Some friends of Eméraude bore down upon her, and after a torrent of
congratulation, haughtily received by Rudolph, the latter rose and
took the poet’s arm. They walked past the hotel, and a dark flush
spread like a flame over Rudolph’s face when he recognised the gallant
Captain of the Artillery.

“The sister is here, too,” said the poet, not troubled with any
hesitation or sensitiveness to the delicacy of the subject.

“Indeed,” said Rudolph, very softly.

He did not resent the liberty; he felt an aching desire to hear
something of her--hear that she was well and happy.

“She is married,” he said.

“Yes, and grown so stout. There’s a baby with them. There they are.”

Rudolph started, and the hand on the poet’s arm trembled violently.

Agiropoulos and Andromache were coming towards him. Agiropoulos was on
the side of the sea, fat, contented, floridly attired, with a flower
in his buttonhole and a gold-rimmed glass in his eye. The departing
sunshine shone from the west full upon Andromache’s face. It had lost
all the pretty appeal of youth. A handsome enough profile, dull,
well-filled, with dark blue eyes looking out of a forest of curled
fringe, upon which a much too fashionable bonnet reposed. Rudolph was
startled and disappointed to find his old love the mere expression
of commonplace, domestic content. Yes, she looked as if she did not
greatly mourn him, and remembering his wife’s elegance and social
charm, he recognised he had done better than marry Andromache. But good
heavens! how pretty and sweet she had been in those old days when his
heart was so fresh and his days so innocent! He saw again the little
salon overlooking the Gardens of the French School, with all its
trivial details accurately fixed upon his memory, and two foolish young
creatures so desperately afraid of each other, when first confronted
with a love scene. What a charming idyll! and how evanescent and
unseizable its fragrance floated out of the past!

Andromache was the first to see him. She did not start, but turned
pale to the lips, and looked at him steadily while her fingers closed
convulsively upon her red parasol. Agiropoulos brought his quick, sharp
gaze to bear upon Ehrenstein, who at once lifted his hat. But his
salute was not returned by husband or wife, Andromache stared straight
before her, and Agiropoulos smiled insolently as he passed.

Rudolph gazed across the sea with twitching lips. The cut hurt him more
than he dared allow to himself. He was gentleman enough to feel ashamed
that he deserved it, but was unaccountably angry with Andromache for
not having learned to forgive him.

“Let us go back to Madame,” he said, quietly.

“Have you had enough of Phalerum, Eméraude?” he asked, in reply to the
silent question of his wife’s look.

“You discontented fellow! We have only just come.”

“And how long are we to remain?”

“There, I see you are upset, and, as I can’t expect to make you an
ambassador if I don’t humour you a little, I’ll take you back to Athens
at once,” said Eméraude, rising good-naturedly.

Rudolph flashed her a look of boyish gratitude, and pressed her hand
as he helped her into the train. He was a little boisterous and
intractable on his way to town, laughed and talked wildly and, when
they got into a carriage at Athens to drive to the Hôtel de la Grande
Bretagne, a reaction came, and he sat back, the picture of moody
discontent. Verily, Mademoiselle Veritassi has not chosen an easy life,
but we can see that she understands her task, and that, in spite of
ill-tempers and storms, the whip-hand will be hers.

Turning the corner of Hermes Street, Rudolph’s unhappy glance fell
upon another picture, and one that struck a heavier blow upon his
bruised heart. Two persons on a balcony of the Hôtel d’Angleterre,
which faces Constitution Square, opposite the Palace, were enjoying
the sunset, and the soft, departing daylight. A man was leaning with
his back to the railing, smoking and looking down upon a seated woman
in front of him. Rudolph’s pulses stood still. It was impossible not
to recognise the owner of the supple brown hand that grasped the edge
of the railing, and upon a slight movement of the smoker, who seemed
to be speaking with playful earnestness to his companion, Rudolph saw
Reineke’s delicate, clear profile. A hungry pain sprang into Rudolph’s
eyes as he sat forward, and looked back through the railings, while the
carriage drove across the Square. He saw Inarime distinctly, with her
eyes lifted to her husband, and a happy smile stirring her grave lips.
And as he watched, Reineke went over and sat beside her.

The carriage stopped in front of the Hôtel de la Grande Bretagne,
and Rudolph helped his wife out. Instead of following her in, he
hurried down the path to stare again at the rival hotel. Inarime now
was standing with her hand upon Gustav’s shoulder, and the spectator
might divine that the husband was protesting laughingly against some
decision of hers. Then with her tender, grave smile she passed from him
and went inside. Gustav remained seated on the balcony, smoking.

“They are not contented--they are happy,” said Rudolph, as he turned to
join his wife. “Nobody is miserable but myself. Photini is dead, and
I’m alive. I don’t know that it is I who have the best of it, either.
She was right. She told me from the first I never should be happy.
Andromache! Inarime! and poor Photini! I wonder why I have missed the
gladness of life. It seems to exist, and some people catch it. I am
only twenty-five. Heaven help me, what shall I be ten years hence, when
I feel so bitter on my wedding tour?”

He knocked at his wife’s door, and entering, threw himself on a sofa.

“How long do you propose staying in this wretched hole?” he asked.

“A week or so,” said his wife, surprised. “Why?”

“I want to know what I am expected to do with myself.”

“Look after me, of course, and dance attendance on me,” laughed his
wife.


THE END.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65098 ***